


Let's Hear It For My Man!

by cloudings



Series: Let’s Hear It For My Baby! [3]
Category: IT - Stephen King
Genre: Accidental Sexting, Anal Fingering, Anal Sex, Anniversary, BEV/EDDIE FRIENDSHIP RIGHTS, Blow Jobs, Car Sex, Condoms, Crying During Sex, Domestic, Established Relationship, Explicit Consent, First Time, Fluff, Hand Jobs, Homophobic Language, Hotel Sex, I Love Mike Hanlon, Ice Cream, Idiots in Love, Jealous Eddie Kaspbrak, Kinda, Laughter During Sex, Love Confessions, M/M, Masturbation, Richie Tozier Loves Eddie Kaspbrak, Richie is 18 and Eddie is 17, Riding, Rimming, STAN/EDDIE FRIENDSHIP RIGHTS, Sexting, Smut, Summer, Texting, Vacation, relationship milestones, richie tozier speaks (some) spanish
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-12-09
Updated: 2019-12-09
Packaged: 2021-02-26 02:14:01
Rating: Explicit
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply, Underage
Chapters: 1
Words: 47,210
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/21725821
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/cloudings/pseuds/cloudings
Summary: Eddie has never been in a relationship before Richie, and boy, is he paying for it. He's never been so worked up before; hormones high and flying ever since he'd had his first taste of him - he can'tstop.When Richie mumbles a warm, deep-rooted wish into Eddie's ear on the night of their one month anniversary, there's little else that Eddie can think about. Mind and body consumed by his boyfriend, Eddie formulates a plan: do everything in his power to make their first time as perfect as possible.He wants Richie to fuck him.He wants Richie to make love to him.Fuck. He loves him.Fuck.
Relationships: Eddie Kaspbrak/Richie Tozier
Series: Let’s Hear It For My Baby! [3]
Series URL: https://archiveofourown.org/series/1508225
Comments: 180
Kudos: 1087





	Let's Hear It For My Man!

**Author's Note:**

> HELLOOOOO lovely people thank u so much for reading the last instalment of this series..  
> the response that i have received from these fics has been entirely overwhelming and i am SOSOSOSOSO pleased to finally be able to bring you this last part! i hope it's up to all of ur expectations and im so so sorry that it has taken this long! AND IM SORRY THAT THIS IS SO LONG TOO! OVER 40K! WTF!!!!
> 
> ps. take a shot every time i write the word 'familiar' JEEEZ!
> 
> PPS... [here](https://open.spotify.com/playlist/3DEwg2z3n2fzGQMUxwjFX5?si=IUpkODwITp2nGLBndttWLg) is a link to the spotify playlist that is featured heavily throughout this fic. it is richie and eddie's combined playlist, but its pretty much just a bunch of songs that make richie think of eddie in one way or another ;>
> 
> come talk to me on twitter @greyclouding !

There is no heterosexual explanation for this. 

Eddie’s heart is throbbing like a drum in his chest like a dead giveaway that’s not quite dead. He can feel Richie’s, too — _thump thump thumping_ against his ear and the side of his face, drenched in a cold sweat as his speech rattles Eddie’s bones. They’re both teetering on frozen. Locked in a freezer and precisely aware of it. 

He can’t speak. If somebody had a gun to his head and told him to make an excuse for their position, his brains would be jelly on the floor by now. Luckily for him (though the _lucky_ may be up for debate), Richie does what Richie normally does best: talk.

He says, “So, it’s a really funny story, actually; we forgot where Ben told us the blankets are because we are – _doink_ – big, dumb idiots, and we got cold.”

There’s no reply.

“I’m talking like, _freezing_ cold. My toes were numb. You guys know I hate numb toes. All toes are better warm.”

Nothing.

“Like you guys never accidentally cuddle when you fall asleep in the same vicinity as someone else! That’s human biology, baby, and I’m getting an A.”

Again, the poor excuse charters no response, but Eddie can only assume that whoever is at the door (and unfortunately, Eddie has to assume _all of them_ judging by Richie’s words of _Scooby Gang_ ) turn towards the empty couch, perfectly spare and quite appropriately Eddie-sized. 

“You know what he’s like,” Richie says, laughing, though Eddie can sense his nervousness. “Stubborn little bitch, he had his heart set on this couch and wouldn’t take no for an answer.”

Silence. 

“Okay, so, at some point in the night, this massive fuck-off hound crawled in through the window, right? So we had to fight it off, but in the end, it was just a hallucination all along, and —”

“Your neck,” someone says, and it’s so high that Eddie’s not sure whether it’s Beverly or Stan speaking. “He was kissing your neck.”

“Do you know how many wet dreams teenage boys have? Eds was probably just using me as a substitute for his favourite pillow!”

“Richie,” Eddie whispers, stricken. 

“Shush, I got this,” he tells him, rubbing his thumb over his skin; which, in hindsight, does not help much with their situation. “You guys totally won’t believe this, but it’s the truth. You remember how Eddie didn’t answer when asked what he would do if he turned into a girl? Well, funny story, again, he actually _did_ turn into a girl last night, and —”

“Hey!” Eddie scorns, shooting up. “Why am I the girl?!”

He raises an eyebrow at him, and says, “Eds.”

There’s a snort from the door. Eddie turns his head, seeing, for the first time, their unwelcome company. He catches Bev’s eyes first, her face red and her lips parted in surprise. The next is Stanley, who looks to be in a similar state to her, staring at Eddie with a kind of profound realisation – or perhaps confirmation of something that he’d seen before. Ben’s looking mostly at his poor couch (Sorry, Mrs Hanscom), and Bill looks like he’s mostly pushing back his laughter behind his lips. 

Mike, though. Mike just says, “Fucking hell, Eddie. Your _neck!”_

Eddie does not definitively know exactly what it is about his neck that has Mike looking like – like _that._ Wide eyes. Dilated pupils. Parted lips. Eddie would assume that he _likes_ the way that he looks, if his face didn’t convey so much concern. 

The rest of them look, then, too, eyes drifting to Eddie’s throat and knocking them back a little bit. He frowns, a hand lifting as if he could somehow sense what was so wrong by just feeling it, but Richie gets there first. He quickly places his hand over Eddie’s neck, yanking him down to his chest, shielding him from view. 

“So, remember that dog?” Richie laughs nervously. “Turns out that he mauled Eddie’s neck! Crazy, right? Maybe you lot should disperse to get some bandages, or something.”

“Richie,” Beverly speaks up. “I think —”

“Your breasts are looking fantastic this morning, Miss Marsh,” he announces, gesturing to her chest, half on display thanks to her tank top. 

“H- H- _Hey_ ,” Bill scorns, and Ben looks like he’s ready to swing as well, but Beverly just rolls her eyes at him.

“Wow, you know,” she begins, shaking her head. “That sounds like something that a real heterosexual would say.”

Richie squeezes Eddie’s arm before answering, “Listen, I don’t know what heteros _you’ve_ been dealing with, but this lot —” He points around at the boys surrounding her. “— Can’t take their fucking eyes off of them, so —”

“Richie!” Ben and Bill shout at the same time. 

“Beep, beep,” Bev warns.

Eddie pushes himself to sit up, scowling at him. He snaps, “Rich!” and gives him a look that has him physically recoiling. 

“Sorry,” he says at once, voice low and quiet. “I’m sorry, Bev.”

Eddie relaxes a little, releasing a sigh, and he turns to see Bev with a sympathetic look upon her face. She has her arms folded over herself self-consciously, but her concern appears to be with them alone.

“Guys,” Eddie says to them. “Could you give us a minute, please?”

The boys leave as soon as they ask, Stan lingering for just a moment longer, eyes trying to convey a message to Eddie when they meet his. Beverly waits, though, leaning down and placing one hand on Richie’s bare knee. 

“I’m not mad,” she says. “I’m sorry we all had to walk in like that. Let us know when you guys are ready.” 

She pats his knee once, twice, before smiling at them both comfortingly and walking out of the lounge. She closes the door behind her. They both release one long breath in unison.

“Fuck,” Richie says. He’s running his hands through his hair, one after the other, one after the other. “ _Fuck.”_

Eddie reaches upwards, taking hold of one of his wrists softly, threading their fingers together. “Hey. Hey, look at me. Look at me,” he soothes. “Richie.”

Richie’s hands are shaking. Or maybe it’s his own. 

“Yeah.” Richie squeezes his hand. “Sorry. Shit. _Fuck._ I’m sorry.”

“They’re our friends,” Eddie tells him. “You know it’ll be okay.”

“That doesn’t —” He gulps. “I know what they’re gonna be thinking, Eds.”

He waits. When Richie doesn’t elaborate, he asks, “What are they going to think?”

“That they were right.”

Eddie frowns. “Who were? Them? You could tell that they had no idea that you’re gay, Rich. Hell, _I_ didn’t even have any freaking idea and I’d been crushing on you for like, years, so.”

The smile that flutters across Richie’s face makes Eddie’s heart skip a beat. He can’t believe that he can be that lost on a smile. He’s embarrassing.

“Bullshitters like Bowers,” he explains. “He caught me, once, at the arcade. I was hardcore trying to get into this guy’s — good books. Turns out it was Henry’s cousin.”

“Shit,” he huffs, spare hand rising to cup Richie’s cheek. “You never told me that.”

“I never told anyone. How could I?” He shrugs. “That’s when the names got worse, anyway. Don’t tell me you didn’t notice those. Tozier’s a fairy, haven't you heard?” he taunts, his voice high. “Now, all that lot are going to think is that those dickheads were right all along.”

“They’re not going to think that, Richie. Come on. They’re our best friends. Like they give a shit what Henry and Patrick and freaking _Belch_ think of us. If they did, we wouldn’t be proud to call ourselves _Losers._ ”

“Maybe they should start calling us the _Fagg—”_

“Richie.”

“Sorry.”

Eddie shuffles closer to him, leaning in to press a small kiss to his nose. Richie immediately smiles again. Eddie feels a hand slip to the small of his back.

“You don’t need to be sorry. For any of it.”

“No, but. I don’t know. You know I fucking hate talking about my feelings, Eds, and… I’ve just kept this a secret for _so long_ and — I don’t know. I guess I was expecting to go until I was forty-one, or something, and all depressed, dealing with internalised homophobia.”

“Forty-one, huh?” Eddie hums. “Very specific.”

“Oh, trust me, I’ve thought it through. I become a _world-famous_ comedian, and — What? Why are you laughing? I hate to break it to you, but that part isn’t a joke. Hey. Hey! Anyway. I’m famous. I’m basically John Mulaney. I purely make jokes about my girlfriend slash wife, even though I’m like, completely single — like I said, dumb, internalised homophobia. I own super sexy cars, super hot mansions, living in California, the whole lot.”

“And where was I in this whole scenario? Do I still exist?”

“You exist. You live in New York. You have a – You have a wife. You’re pretty successful, too, you know. You work for a —” He pauses for affect — “ _Risk Assessing_ business.”

Eddie snorts. “So, I have a wife, and the most boring job ever?” 

“Well, this is what I used to think would happen.” He slides one hand beneath Eddie’s underwear. A hand grasps at his cheek. “You’re a good listener.”

“No. You’re just too used to speaking.” 

“Mm. You know, you’re pretty cute in this alternate universe.”

“I am, huh?” He presses back against his hand. “I’m a cute forty-year-old?”

“Only the cutest.” 

Eddie grins, jumping a little as Richie squeezes his behind. “Thank you,” he says.

“Well, I’ve never had anybody thank me for squeezing their ass before. It’s usually a _beep, beep_ moment, actually.” He squeezes it again, for good measure.

“Thank you for talking to me.”

“Well. You calmed me down.”

“You know, I didn’t even do anything.”

“You were here.”

Richie leans in, pecking him once, twice, three times, before capturing him in one long kiss and pinching his cheek (one on his face, this time). His tongue slips between his lips and there’s one, two _pat pats_ on his butt. 

When Richie rolls his hips up, Eddie can’t help but hum a moan into his mouth, and he has to pull away before he does it again. 

“Richie,” he whispers against him, pressing his hands to Richie’s chest and backing his head away. “They’re literally waiting for us right outside this door.”

“Let them wait a bit more.”

Eddie smiles, pushing Richie down once again as he leans up for another kiss. “You’ve changed your tune.”

“Dominating, huh, Eds? Not gonna lie, not where my thoughts usually go, but _definitely_ something that I can get behind.”

“They’re waiting for us to let them back in, so we can talk about this.” 

“I don’t — I’d much rather prefer this.”

“I know. But they’ve — They know, now. Let’s tell them, you know, our side.”

Richie groans, over-exaggerated, brushing off Eddie’s leg so he can stand. “Okay,” he whispers, mostly to himself, “Okay. It’s fine. If I can face them, I can face anyone.” He walks towards the door to the lounge.

“Rich?”

He turns around at once. “Eddie, baby, if you don’t let me do this now, I’ll never do it.”

“I just,” he says, and it’s difficult to hold back his smile. “I thought you might have wanted to wait until we put our clothes on.”

Richie looks down at himself. Somehow, Eddie’s not sure, he’d acquired a semi. Fucking Richie. 

“You don’t think they’d like the view?”

“Shut up,” he laughs, grabbing his ( _Richie’s)_ shirt from the floor and tugging it on over his head. “That’s my view. They don’t need to see that.”

“Oh! Eds is getting possessive?” Richie bends down, pulling up his jeans and sniffing his shirt before pulling a face and yanking it on. 

“You’re disgusting. I just don’t want to have the sight of you burnt into their poor brains forever.” 

Richie grins at him and strides towards him, bending to grab hold of Eddie’s thighs. He lifts him up, Eddie showing anything but reluctance, pressing in to his hold. He can feel Richie’s hair tickling his cheek, his lips brushing over his collarbone. He feels a nip.

“Richie,” he huffs. “Come on. You’ve marked me up enough, by the sounds of it.”

“Maybe. Can’t help it.” Another bite. “You’ve got gorgeous flesh — just _ripe_ for a feast.”

“You’re not a vampire, Richie.”

“Cease this slander! _Count_ _Reeecheeee,”_ he says, rolling his R. “I vant to suck your di—”

“Okay!” Eddie shouts, covering his mouth with his hand. “Put me down before your mind starts to go crazy again. Go tell them to come in.”

He feels Richie pout under his palm, but he resigns to a nod, dropping Eddie down onto the couch with a content little chuckle. Eddie kicks at his hips playfully in turn, and Richie pokes his tongue out at him as he makes his way to the door. Eddie hears the deep breath that he takes before his hand reaches for the handle and finds himself echoing it. He can feel his heart pounding again. 

_It’ll be fine._ It’ll be fine. He told Richie it would be fine. And it will be. Definitely. 

“Hello,” Richie says awkwardly, poking his head around the doorframe. “You guys weren’t listening in, were you? Because I’d hate for you to know all of our secret theories about star-crossed lovers: RuPaul and Elton John.”

Eddie’s eyes hurt from how hard he rolls them. 

He watches anxiously as his friends pour in through the door, looking around the lounge almost as if they expect to see a crime scene. Beverly sits herself down on the unused couch across the room, Mike and Stan settling down side by side next to her. Bill and Ben find themselves sat on the carpet. Ben still looks more concerned about his sofa than anything else. Bless him.

“So, I’m assuming you have some questions,” Richie says, breaking the ice like he’s best at. He kicks the door shut and flops himself down next to Eddie. He’s still scared. He sits with a good amount of distance between them, and all Eddie wants to do is reach over and hold his hand. Richie continues, “Listen, if you ask me how old Diana Ross was when she died, I don’t —”

“Richie,” Eddie says, quietening him. He watches his leg begin to bounce. The others don’t notice, not that Eddie can tell.

“H- H- How long?” Bill asks, brows furrowed as he peers between the two of them. Eddie can guess what he’s thinking: how on earth he didn’t figure out that two of his best friends are gay/dating/fucking /together/ _whatever the fuck together means._ He’s usually so perceptive.

“Well,” Richie answers. “Officially? We’ve been together maybe six hours. Unofficially? We’ve been… doing stuff, for almost forty-eight hours. You guys really haven’t missed much. Do you want us to fill you in on the details?”

A chorus of _no, no, that’s gross, no_ ’s erupt from their friends and Eddie couldn’t be more thankful. As much as he loves them all, they really _don’t_ need to know how long they both last, or how deep Eddie can take Richie’s dick down his throat, or exactly why Eddie looks like he’s been battered with paintballs from the chest up. 

“So you guys,” Mike says, and pauses, eyes flickering over to his right for just a split second. He clears his throat. “You two are gay?”

Neither of them speak for a minute. Eddie had been half expecting Richie to take the wheel for this. This questions, however, seems to have knocked him a little bit. Maybe they aren’t ready. But they’re together. 

Eddie shuffles over, face ablaze, and places his hand on top of Richie’s. He says, “Yeah, we’re gay,” and squeezes the hand beneath his own when he sees Richie whip his head to look at him. 

Richie responds, “Alright, _Love, Simon,_ this is cheesy as fuck,” but flips his hand to wind their fingers together anyway. He squeezes Eddie’s hand back, and there’s an embarrassing knot in his heart that makes him smile too wide. 

“So, how did you get together?” Ben asks. Eddie lets Richie take this one; as soon as the question is asked, he knows that the man is _buzzing_ to respond.

“I got out a piece of paper, and I wrote on it, and it said, _Your hair is winter fire, January embers, my heart—”_

There’s scuffled laughter as Ben throws the nearest thing he can reach at Richie’s face. Richie’s laughing, too, and Eddie feels a little bit taken, too exposed in his staring in front of all of their friends. He’s always been so careful. Can that stop now? 

Beverly isn’t laughing when Eddie looks over, just smiling softly, draping her legs over Mike’s lap. When her face splits into a grin and her heavy laughter is drawn from her lips, it almost startles him. Then he sees what she’s looking at; what Ben had thrown, evidently, held up by Richie with a grin so smug that it’s almost torture to not wipe it off of him. He’s dangling Eddie’s shorts from his index finger. He hates him.

“I hate you,” he deadpans, snatching them from his hand and yanking them on. Thankfully, nobody had noticed beforehand; Richie’s shirt was just that long on him. He tries to ignore the laughter, but it’s warm and familiar and reminds him that their opinion of either of them hasn’t changed one bit. 

“I see the bickering hasn’t stopped,” Bev comments with a smile.

Eddie huffs. “Do you actually think I’ll be able to survive if I don’t tell him to shut up ten times a day?”

“Eddie prefers it if I use my mouth in _different ways,_ ” Richie says, wiggling his eyebrows at his ridiculous innuendo. It’s not even a funny one, Eddie thinks, but the Losers are all laughing — probably because it’s one that’s new. Richie need not make jokes about Eddie’s mother anymore because he can just make jokes about _him._ It’s a step up, he figures.

But the comment in itself makes Eddie think. They’ve kissed, of course. They’ve kissed a hell of a lot, considering how long they’ve been doing it together, and Richie’s lips could barely part from Eddie’s skin last night. But still, Eddie’s dick remains unsucked; a virgin to the wet heat of a ready mouth and that, considering he is literally the boyfriend of one _Trashmouth_ Tozier, is unforgivable. 

He wants Richie to give him a blowjob. He might even _need_ it. He can definitely picture it now, and it’s definitely not difficult to do so, the picture of Richie sinking to his knees before him flooding his parched mind. He can imagine how good it would feel, too, from word of mouth and the sheer lewdity of Richie’s reaction to his own. Eddie would ask him to keep his glasses on whilst he’s doing it, shovel his fingers into the birdsnest that he calls hair and _beg_ — beg for any kind of contact because _holy shit —_ if he loses his mind at Richie touching his freaking _calves_ then how the shit is he going to handle his mouth on his dick? 

Fuck.

“Shut up,” Eddie says, without any of the usual heat, eyes trained solely on those lips. If anybody notices, they don’t say a word.

*

They leave Ben’s house at around midday. After a thorough clean, which Eddie had to physically drag Richie to participate in, they say their goodbyes and make to scuttle out before Ben’s folks return home. Ben’s staying behind to sort some stuff out (Eddie’s not too sure, he wasn’t listening that closely), but the rest of them are wandering the streets together, too caught up in the shared presence to want to go home to reality just yet. 

Eddie’s strayed from where he had been tucked at Richie’s side, fingers brushing together but not _quite_ holding hands. They’re out to their friends, he has to remind himself, not all of Derry, which is far less forgiving. He’s walking with Stanley now, trailing a little way behind the rest of them. Richie is trying to get on Bill’s back, and Mike and Beverly are discussing some new _Netflix_ show that Eddie’s never heard of before. He hears something about Indiana and wonders why anybody would ever be interested in anything in _Indiana._ What the hell happens in Indiana? 

“I knew,” Stan says. He kicks a can mindlessly with a dull movement of his foot. He’s not looking at Eddie as he speaks, not even when Eddie turns his head to peer at him curiously. 

“Knew what?” he asks.

“I knew you two —” He gestures at Eddie first, and then in Richie’s general direction (at least, Eddie assumes he means Richie, and not Bill, who is staggering under the weight on top of him), “— Had something going on.” 

He furrows his brows at this revelation, and he tilts his head as he says, “You did, huh?”

He nods, kicking the can again. “Yep.”

“Really?”

Foot — Can. Eddie wonders whether _Pepsi_ ever did anything to deserve this. “Really.”

“How?” 

“I don’t know. Maybe it was something that was always, like, there. Something that you could feel, but couldn’t see. You guys always had something.” He shrugs. Eddie watches him look over to Mike and Beverly.

He waits for a second, takes a deep breath, and asks, “So, should I wait to tell you what I figured out last night, or are we not talking about that?”

“Please, please, do not tell me anything that you figured out last night if it has _anything_ to do with Richie’s genitals, Richie’s fetishes, or Richie’s preferences.”

Eddie can feel his face fill with blood. “No!” he whispers. “I meant — You. _You._ ”

Stanley’s face is a picture — Eddie’s never seen his eyes go this wide. “ _My_ genitals? _My_ fetishes?”

“No!” he stresses. “No — Stan, no offence, but I don’t want to know _anything_ to do with your dick.”

“Well, that’s rude,” he huffs. “Come on, then. What the fuck is it?”

“You’re gay, too.”

Stanley crushes the _Pepsi_ can underneath his foot. He stops dead in his tracks. He’s looking at Eddie like he’s grown a second head, and then next to that head, he’s grown a third. His mouth is opening and closing like it’s automated. 

“What?” he breathes.

“You — Sorry,” Eddie says quickly, throwing one hand to his mouth. “Sorry. I didn’t even think.”

“How did— How do you know?”

“Do you want the truth?”

Stanley nods. Eddie needn’t say anything; he looks over towards Mike and Beverly and smiles sadly before redirecting it back to his frozen friend. His face has flushed a bright red. Eddie can’t help it when he starts to chuckle, the blush just being the cherry on top. When Stanley shoves him a little, and they begin to walk again, he begins to laugh properly. 

“Shut up,” Stanley says, grin still wide on his face. “Eddie! Shut up! Seriously!”

“Adorable,” Eddie coos. “You know, you’re gonna fucking tell me all about sharing a bed with him last night, or else.”

“Or else, what?” Stan dares to ask.

Eddie smirks. “I’ll tell you _every_ little detail of what Richie’s dick looks like.”

Stan blanches. When Eddie starts to shake with his suppressed laughter, he joins in, slightly breathless, but relieved within himself. Eddie bites his tongue when Mike looks back at them curiously.

*

It’s when they reach the clubhouse that he ends up feeling the embarrassment once again. They shimmy down the ladder one by one, Eddie racing and beating Richie to go down first. The hammock is less comfortable when empty, though, and Richie only stands at his side instead of jumping in with him. 

Beverly has always been a tad more perceptive than the rest of them, so when her eyes blow wide and her grin extends into a dirty smirk, the anxiety that coils up in his chest isn’t that much of a reach. 

She says, “Oh my god,” in a tone reeking of realisation and it makes Eddie shiver, eyes snapping over to Richie as if he were a comfort blanket. He supposes that maybe he is. 

“What is it?” Mike asks.

The tug at the corner of her lips doesn’t diminish when she answers, “Remember when Richie and Eddie told us they’d both orgasmed down here?”

Eddie slaps his hands over his face. He doesn’t want to know what the others are thinking, the way their eyes widen when adding one with one and getting two. He can feel Richie’s hands sink into his hair distractedly as the group groan.

“Did you have to bring that up last night?” he asks his boyfriend.

“Hey, you did _not_ have to say that you’d done it as well. We could have sat in bliss knowing that I was the only one to bust a nut down here.”

“For some reason, that would be weirder,” Stan says.

Mike nods. “I agree. You two falling into it together is different than Richie just deciding to yank one out because he couldn’t wait to get home.”

“Hey, have you guys ever walked through the woods in May with a boner? The chafing, dude, _the chafing._ I’d rather die than ever do that again.” 

“That’s disgusting,” Eddie tells him.

“You know that you don’t have the ability to call my dick disgusting anymore, right?”

“You’re talking about fucking chafing and shit! That’s gross! That’s completely freaking different from anything else!”

“You guys really get chafing from your dicks?” Beverly asks.

“Yes,” Richie answers at once. Eddie’s too embarrassed to answer; he always is, when it comes to talking about stuff like that with Beverly. It’s like if she came to him and started telling him about her _woman problems._ He’d probably freak out and run away. 

Beverly hums, sitting herself down on the ground next to Bill and draping her legs over his lap. He looks like he might burst. It’s the kind of thing that Richie would make a joke about, but when Eddie looks up at him, he just meets his eye. There’s a soft smile there, for him. Eddie feels his face heat up. 

He pulls him down for a kiss. Just because he can. There’s silence, for just a minute, but conversation between the others continues as if there’s nothing out of the ordinary going on. 

They’re glowing. 

At least, until Beverly asks him, “So, you want those makeup tips now, Eddie?” and gestures to his neck. Eddie turns to Richie with a face full of realisation and bloody murder. If his mother doesn’t kill him first, Richie’s guilty face is going to the _ground._

*

They’ve been dating for one month today. 

Eddie’s now mastered the art of hiding everything from hickeys on his neck to grins at his phone. His mother has no idea of anything at all, and whilst he intends to make it stay that way, it aches a little to have to lie to her about where he goes almost every night. School’s officially out for summer, so he no longer has the sweet excuses of having to study or meeting up for a school project. That doesn’t stop him; a few screaming matches and Sonia swearing that she’ll take him to the ER for a week when he returns doesn't stop him from running out and meeting his friends. 

Sometimes, it’s just him and Richie. Tonight is one of those nights. 

He has _no idea_ where they’re going, and the idea of it kind of scares him, a little. The mystery is fun, until he entertains the fact that Richie could just be taking him down to the arcade for a little game of _Street Fighter_ and have that be that. 

He hopes that he’s not pinning this to be something more than it is. After all, it’s their _anniversary,_ in a way, and that shit is important, right? People _propose_ on anniversaries. And now, as he’s throwing on a pair of shorts and a pink button up, he’s stupidly thinking about marriage with Richie. About how he would propose. Which one of them would be the one to propose? Eddie likes to think that it would be Richie, but pulling an impromptu turn around and having himself be the one to do it would be entertaining. There would definitely be an element of surprise, then. 

More thoughts circle his mind as he toes on his shoes, trying to avoid the creaky floorboards so as to not wake the sleeping lumber of his mother on the couch. Would she attend the wedding? God, he’s only ever thought about telling her that he’s gay, but he has no _idea_ what her reaction would be. Would it be to pity him? Think he’s delusional? Buy him more dud pills that she says will turn him straight? Maybe even pack him up and send him off to some place like Texas to get him into a conversion therapy programme?

As much as he hates his mother, the thought of having another empty seat on his side of the wedding reception kind of stings. She may be an overbearing, manipulative bitch, but she’s still his mom. Right? 

His phone buzzes in his pocket and he feels his face flush at the fact that he was just thinking of freaking _wedding receptions_ and he pulls it out, a familiar photo of him and Richie bearing itself to his eyes. It’s partially covered by the notification, but he can still make out Richie’s silly little smile and his own small blush. Richie’s hugging him in it, his fingers delicately placed on Eddie’s exposed collarbone and knitting in the fabric of the shirt he's wearing (it’s one of Richie’s). The photo had been taken by Stanley, who’d snapped it with a smile. 

Stanley and Eddie had been speaking a lot more frequently lately. It feels nice to be able to tell somebody about things he liked about Richie; things he’d never be able to tell him to his face out of sheer mortification. Stanley had began to speak more about his own love life, as well, and soon enough his Snapchat notifications would be filled with Stan sending Eddie Mike’s stories, accompanied by an unintelligible keyboard smash. Or, other times, when he’d receive a text that simply says something along the lines of _He text me again_ to the more eloquent, _He just asked me to see Gemini Man with him and I laughed in his face. ahdjdjshdjshfn. What is wrong with me._

It was like being able to have a secret gay society. 

Now, the only text that appears upon his screen says, _u ready ;p?_

Eddie’s sort of terrified. But it’s Richie. He’d go anywhere with Richie. 

(But he still kind of hopes that it’s not just an arcade date.)

Richie’s sitting in his car right outside of the house when Eddie sneaks out the front door, yanking on a coat. The June evenings have begun to get warmer, but he knows that he’ll regret not wearing one if they end up returning home during the night time. Richie doesn’t seem to have considered this; he’s sitting in a white button-up, much like Eddie’s own, and the short sleeves exhibit the hairs standing up on his arms already. His face lights up when he turns and sees Eddie walking towards the car, giving him an ecstatic wave. 

“Hey, baby!” Richie squeals once Eddie’s sat in shotgun, leaning over and capturing his lips in a sweet kiss before he can even shut the passenger side door. Eddie melts into it as he always does, allowing the breeze to rustle his hair as he leans back, almost hanging out of the side. 

“Hello to you, too,” Eddie says, pressing one last peck to his lips before softly closing the door. His mother’s not likely to wake up anytime soon, but he’d rather not risk staying in front of her house for too long. “So, where are we going?”

“Well, telling you would frankly defeat the purpose of the concept of the air of mystery and surprise that I’ve got going on right now! Do you wanna ask me an easier question?”

“The question _was_ easy. You just want to keep me guessing,” he says, buckling up and taking a chewing gum out of the packet that Richie now keeps in his car (for no particular reason at all). 

The engine roars and he pulls out of his space, watching the way that the sun reflects in the gleam of Richie’s glasses and lights up his face with a beautiful kind of golden haze. He _loves_ Summer. 

“I can’t help it if you’re cute when you’re confused,” Richie teases, taking a hand off the wheel to place onto Eddie’s thigh. He’s glad that he wore shorts. Richie’s taken this up as a habit, recently, to favour touching Eddie over control of the car. Eddie tells him off for it when he can, but that doesn’t mean he isn’t crazy for it. 

“Can I put on some music?” he asks, grabbing the USB and plugging it into his phone before his boyfriend can even respond. He knows he’ll say yes. He seems to have a hard time saying otherwise to Eddie. 

“Mhm,” he hums, thumb strumming over his skin. “Wait, log onto my _Spotify._ I updated our playlist.”

They often do this, switch accounts. It’s mostly because Eddie’s mother would never allow him to pay for premium, and the adverts get _so fucking annoying._ He likes to listen to the music that Richie says makes him think of him without having to hear _Are YOU ready to become a Mormon?_ without prompting. 

Richie’s Spotify password is the same as his Instagram and his Snapchat. He’s shied away from telling Eddie his password for his Twitter, and he doesn’t even know the _name_ of the Tumblr account that he owns. If that’s not a scary thought, he’s not sure what is. 

When Richie had first told Eddie that he’d made them both a playlist for their relationship, he’d thought it was a little weird. It was something that he’d expect to see in a shitty _Netflix_ rom-com, and when he’d told Richie that, he just laughed and called Eddie _Lara Jean_ for the rest of the day. But as weird as he might have first found it, he still finds himself listening to it everyday. It’s incredibly thoughtful, really, and he can’t listen to any of the songs on there anymore without applying them to their relationship. He never thought that he’d get flustered from hearing _Teenage Dirtbag._

Eddie stares down at his phone, eyebrow raised. He asks, “You wanted to show me that you added _Pony_ to the playlist that you made for us?”

There’s a moment of silence, and then: “You don’t like that song?”

“It’s from Magic Mike!”

“Okay, first of all, it’s Magic Mike _XXL_ , big difference. Second of all, it’s not _from_ Magic Mike XXL, it’s _in_ Magic Mike XXL.”

Eddie stares at him. “You’re so romantic.”

“I’m joking! Baby! C’mon, look at the one above it. _Pony_ was just a ruse. It’s just pretty, I don’t know, gay? Like, seriously. Embarrassingly.”

Eddie can’t help but chuckle, humouring him, gazing down at the playlist once more. He understands what the boy means almost immediately. He wonders whether it’s some kind of blasphemous to have a song like _Pony_ next to this _masterpiece._

“Queen,” he says dumbly, as if he doesn’t already know this. He knows of the song, obviously. It’s not one of their world-famous ones, but it’s one of Eddie’s favourites. He doesn’t remember telling Richie, though. 

Richie squeezes his thigh, says, “Play it,” in a soft, encouraging voice and he feels his face heat up again. The implications of this song are — strong, to say the least. Freddie’s sweet voice fills the darkening car.

_Look into my eyes and you'll see I'm the only one_

_You've captured my love, stolen my heart, changed my life_

_Every time you make a move, you destroy my mind_

_And the way you touch, I lose control and shiver deep inside_

“ _You take my breath away,”_ he hums with the song, reaching down to stroke over Richie’s fingers.

Richie’s mouth is parted. Eddie can see the way that his lips glint in the golden hour. He can see his tongue. His cheeks are dusted with an oncoming summer tan. He’s beautiful. 

“Take a picture, Spaghetti, it’ll last longer,” he teases. His voice is an octave lower than usual; softer, more delicate. He’s embarrassed of the song. 

Eddie takes a photo of him. It’s a good one, if he does say so himself — but it’s thanks to Richie. He’s so damn photogenic. His curls fall just right over his face, his glasses fitted just right. His jawline is cut to perfection, and his smile makes Eddie wonder how he’d resisted kissing him for all of the years that he’s known him. The sun _does_ complement his features, no matter how often Richie insists that his looks suit more of a broody, cold season. 

He posts it to his Instagram and captions it ‘ _You can reduce me to tears with a single sigh — bcos ur hella annoying sometimes.’_ It’s the closest that he can get to posting any kind of thing about their relationship on social media. His Instagram account is public, due to the idea of him only allowing six people to follow his private being a _little_ embarrassing, and if people caught wind of anything more than friendly between the two of them, they’d get harassed even more than usual. He doubts that anybody outside of their friendship group (who lives in the lovely little town of Derry) will be smart enough to understand the context of the quote. They should be safe. 

_You can reduce me to tears with a single sigh_

_(Please don't cry anymore)_

_Every breath that you take, any sound that you make_

_Is a whisper in my ear_

_I could give up all my life for just one kiss_

_I would surely die if you dismiss me from your love_

_Take my breath away_

Eddie can imagine Richie listening to this song. Sitting by himself. In his room. Maybe on his bed. This song coming on some random playlist and him hearing the lyrics and immediately thinking, somehow, of Eddie. The romantic kind of emotion that slips from the legendary lips and makes him think of _him._

_So please don't go_

_Don't leave me here all by myself_

_I get ever so lonely from time to time_

_I will find you anywhere you go_

_I'll be right behind you_

_Right until the ends of the earth_

_I'll get no sleep till I find you_

_And tell you that you just…_

“ _Take my breath away,”_ Richie finishes, and his voice may not be the _best._ Neither is his own. They’re both awful at it, and it takes away the sentiment of the song. Or maybe it adds to it. Makes it their own. 

Eddie has no idea where they’re going. He’s lost his bearings now that the sun has begun to properly hide itself, and it’s not as if he’d had his eyes on anything but Richie, anyway. Can you blame him? 

They’re surrounded by a lot of trees, which isn’t particularly unusual for Derry. It seems like they’re in the middle of the woods. Coming up to nighttime. Maybe Richie’s just taking him out there to kill him. A freak part of his brain says, _yeah, if it’s Richie, it’s okay,_ but he’d much rather be taken into the woods for something other than a knife to impale him. He shifts his hips.

_I will find you anywhere you go_

_Right until the ends of the earth_

_I’ll get no sleep till I find you_

_To tell you when I've found you_

_I love you_

The song comes to a close as they drive over the Kissing Bridge. Eddie lifts Richie’s hand to his face and presses his fingertips to his lips. It’s a shock when the car slows down after they’ve just gone over it. The motion stops completely as the very last _Ooh, take my breath away_ has been sung, not only by Freddie, but by the both of them (awfully). The engine stops purring. Richie unbuckles his seatbelt and stops Eddie with a kiss before he can undo his own. 

It’s not like they haven’t made out in Richie’s car before, but the idea of it still entices him _so much._ It seems simultaneously so grown-up and so teenaged. Richie’s not one of those guys who loves his car more than life itself (thankfully), but there’s the premise of indulging in debauchery in the car and doing the opposite of Christening it. Now _that_ is blasphemous. 

So, when he leans back against the door and pulls Richie on top of him, it may be uncomfortable, but it’s sort of like a bucket-list moment about to be checked off. Richie’s hand is on his hip and drawing small circles on the skin under his shirt, the other helping keep him up so that he doesn’t crush Eddie under his body. Eddie’s nose nudges his glasses as their lips move as one against each other, but he doesn’t care. Richie has gum in his mouth, too, Eddie realises. Richie knows that Eddie appreciates the freshness, but Eddie doesn’t think that he minds Richie’s natural taste much, anymore (so long as he actually _has_ brushed his teeth). 

It’s sort of difficult to focus on much else at the moment, but there’s a lingering nag in the back of his head. It may be getting dark, but they’re still in public. Anyone could walk by. 

Eddie graciously accepts his tongue into his mouth before pulling away. Richie’s panting a little bit. It’s adorable. His tongue is still sticking out.

“Rich,” he says, “As much as I love kissing you – and you know I do – aren’t we a bit out in the open?” 

There’s a low chuckle from the man on top of him that makes him shiver a little. “We’re on the _Kissing Bridge_ , nobody’s gonna stop to see _who_ is kissing. It’s alright. And if they do, we’ll just tell them that it’s contagious, and rub our grubby little dick-fingers all over them.”

Eddie huffs out a laugh. “Pretty sure that’s sexual harassment.”

“And you only want me to sexually harass you, huh. Eds?”

“Well, yes. Except, you know, without all of the creepiness of it all.”

“No, no, you’ve said it now! I’m going to hack into your phone and watch you whilst you sleep. And I’m also just going to watch you all the time, in general. _Especially_ when you’re in the shower.”

He raises an eyebrow. “We’ve literally already showered together.”

“Shush! I’m putting together my creep portfolio, don’t ruin it!”

“You’re not a creep, Richie.”

“I don’t want _them_ to know that!”

“Who?”

“The — Gods?”

Eddie snorts, leaning up once more and capturing another kiss. It’s embarrassing, how enticing he finds him, especially when he’s such a goofball. But when Eddie starts to thread his fingers through his hair and lift his hips to meet the other’s in the middle, Richie is the one that pulls away first, much to Eddie’s dismay.

“What are you _doing?_ ” he whines, linking his fingers at the back of his neck and attempting to pull him back down. “You freaking — You get me all hard, just to _stop?!_ Are you seriously giving me blue-balls here?”

“Hey, I’m blue-balling myself too. Sometimes, there have to be sacrifices made, y’know, for the greater good.”

“Did you just pull a Dumbledore quote on me? Did you seriously do that?”

“ _Always,”_ he purrs.

“No,” Eddie huffs. “No, no, no! Not going to get into the Great Snape Debate with you again, no way.” 

“Eddie, honey, he was just _in love._ ”

“Shut up! He was a friend-zoned freak. You’re just saying all of that to rile me up, I _know it._ This is _just_ like that time when you started to defend Daenerys, and you know what? It’s stupid, it’s pathetic, it’s —”

Richie kisses him once again, so similar to the many times that Eddie’s shut him up in the same way. Eddie melts into it, his gut heating in a way that he’ll never get tired of. He’s so hard, and it hurts because he _knows_ that Richie’s not going to go through with it right now, because he has plans for them. It’s exciting to know that his boyfriend has a romantic evening put together for them both, but his erection is rampant and he’s not sure it’s going to go away any time soon. He might be constantly hard whenever he’s around Richie. There’s something about him that’s so familiar and yet so foreign. It’s an alluring mixture. 

His neck is at an awkward angle, and his back is pressing against the seatbelt, but their lips are pressed together and Richie’s tongue is in his mouth and he would gladly die in a day or two if it meant that he could have this. But he can’t. Because God hates him. And, apparently, so does Richie. He pulls out of the kiss, leaving Eddie writhing once again, as rude as that is. He bites his lip, leaning up for more, pouting as Richie holds a finger to his lips. 

“It’ll be worth it, I promise,” he says, and Eddie thinks that that _better be freaking true,_ because he is _straining_ against his shorts, right now.

“Really?”

“I mean, I hope so?”

“I’m just kidding, it’ll be okay. Anything that we do will be perfect.”

“That’s the spirit, Batty!” he declares, leaning back to give Eddie room to sit up. “Now, come on, come on! I’ve got something to show you.”

Eddie scrambles to get out of the car, the cool evening breeze rustling his hair and making him relieved that he brought a coat with him. His legs erupt with goosebumps. He can’t have everything, he supposes. 

He pushes the car door closed behind him and he watches Richie approach him, a big grin stretched over his face. He takes Eddie’s hand in his own and the size difference is as equally enticing and embarrassing as ever. It’s too cold for their hands to be sweaty, for once, despite it being June. Eddie stands on his tiptoes to kiss his cheek. 

“Still making me blush, Eds,” he coos.There’s a tug on his arm. “Come on, it’s just over here.”

“On the Kissing Bridge? You’re not gonna push me over the side, are you? Can’t lie, Rich, this definitely seems like a set up for a horror movie, right here.”

“How would you know? You never watch them!”

“I do, too! I watched _Jigsaw_ with you guys, the other day!”

“Baby, you spent half of it with your face in my shirt.”

“Uh, yeah, because it’s basic human nature to turn away when there’s a freaking half-decapitated _head_ on the screen! It showed like, his brain cut in half, and his mouth from the inside out! It was disgusting!”

Richie laughs softly, letting Eddie’s hand go once they reach the side of the bridge. He places his hands onto the wooden border, looking out over the forest around them. If it weren’t for Richie’s presence, Eddie would definitely believe that he was about to be murdered, kidnapped, or both. The sun is finally settling beyond the horizon. Eddie can see stars in the sky. 

“Pretty,” he mumbles, looking up.

“Thanks,” Richie says. “Not so bad yourself.”

Eddie rolls his eyes at him. It’s more than just a habit, at this point. He asks, “What did you have to show me?”

Richie waits for a second before he answers. “It’s right in front of you.”

He blinks. Frowns. Narrows his eyes and looks around. “You came here to show me yourself?”

“Absolutely. This is me, Eds, raw and real. You can see all of me, now.”

Eddie stares at him. “Richie, I’ve seen you naked.”

“Ah! I know. Fuck. I’m just stalling. Okay.” 

Richie kneels down. Eddie kind of freezes. 

“Oh my god,” he says. “Oh my god. Richie.”

“Wait,” he says.

“Richie, oh my _god,_ we’re — Richie!” 

Eddie’s pressing his hands to his lips, now, watching Richie reach into the pocket of his jeans, presumably for a— a _ring._ Holy _shit._ Is this actually happening? Eddie sinks down onto his knees himself, placing one hand onto Richie’s arm to stop him pulling the item out of his jeans. He takes a deep breath.

“Eds?”

“Rich… We’re — Now, I’m not saying never, because that - that would be nice, at some point, but — Richie, we’re still in high school!”

Richie frowns at him. “I… I know we’re still in high school.”

“Don’t you think it’s a little soon? I mean, we’ve only been together for one month, and I know that Maine was one of the first states to legalise it, but —”

“Eddie?” Richie interrupts, placing his palms to Eddie’s face. “Are you having some kind of crisis?”

Eddie nods. “Yeah, a little!”

“Why?”

“ _Why?!_ Because I’m only seventeen!”

“Eddie, okay, you gotta give me a moment here to catch up. If you’re from another universe and have somehow found yourself in a random teenage boy’s body and you have no idea who I am, say _I’m an adult virgin._ ”

“No, I — Why that?”

Richie shrugs. “Safeword?”

“That’s four words.”

“Safewords.”

“Richie, I’m not from a parallel universe or anything, oh my god. I’m freaking out because I’m seventeen and I don’t know if I can be engaged yet, like, emotionally!”

There’s a second where it looks like Richie’s going to say something, but he shuts his mouth with a _snap_ before opening it once more, eyebrows furrowing for just a second before shooting up his forehead. He reaches over and takes hold of Eddie’s hand. 

“Engaged?” he questions quietly. 

Eddie squeezes his hand. “It — I can’t even legally get married until my birthday, Rich, because you _know_ my mom would rather die than ever give her consent towards anything like that, and I’ve always really wanted a — a spring wedding, you know? And we’re gonna be so _busy_ in September _anyway,_ and even in Spring! College, Richie! Oh my god, we’re getting married and we’re going to _college._ ”

“Eddie,” Richie says. His voice is soft. “Do you want me to just throw the ring off the bridge?”

He blanches. “No! No, I still —” he starts, and promptly shuts up when he hears his boyfriend laughing.

“Baby, as much as I — as much as I love what we have going on here, I’m not proposing right now. Sorry, sorry! I couldn’t resist playing along!”

Eddie goes from white to red within the few seconds of realisation that hit him like a tonne of bricks, dusting their remnants all over his cheeks. It even reaches his fucking ears, this time. His jaw drops. He releases Richie’s hand and plasters both of his own over his mouth, ready to keel over and just… _die_.

“Richie.”

“I’m sorry!”

“Oh my God.”

Eddie’s head hangs low, unable to dare to look Richie in the eyes at this second, or the next, or the one after that. This is what sheer mortification feels like. He wants to roll himself under the barrier and down the rocky, dirty hills, hopefully banging his head on a tree trunk, if he’s lucky. How could he be so fucking _stupid?_ He wonders if there’s a reason that God hates him. Maybe it _is_ because he’s gay. The Catholics were right, all along. 

“I’m going to die,” he says, voice forced from his throat in a croak. “Hit me. Please. Hit me with your car.”

“Eds, c’mon, it’s alright!” Richie stresses, shuffling towards him and placing a hand on his thigh again. It’s familiar. He’s still more than embarrassed. “Seriously. You think that I’d be… what? Offended? Grossed out?”

He gives Eddie the opportunity to speak. He just shrugs, and hums, “ _Mm–m_ ,” in a way that slightly sounds like ‘I don’t know.’

“Well, I wouldn’t be! I wouldn’t mind if we were together for the rest of our _lives,_ Spaghetti-head! Hell, that’s the ideal outcome of getting into a relationship, right? And when you finally walk down the aisle in a skin-tight white dress, with _Pony_ playing in the background, I will be one over-the-moon groom.” He rubs his thumb over his thigh. He knows that Eddie loves it when he does that. “But, I agree. It’s way too young for us to be getting engaged. I’m also frankly offended that you think that I would propose _here,_ of all places, rather than in front of a gigantic crowd, with about ten cameras and all of our friends. Your mom needs to be there, too, so we can give her a heart attack.”

Eddie chuckles wetly, still pouting, but he places one of his hands on top of Richie’s anyway. He still refrains from looking up at him, his head feeling too full of butterflies and dizziness and his face still entirely too hot. He mumbles, “Why am I the freaking bride?”

“Because you’re my pretty, that’s why,” he says, and turns his voice into some grotesque malformation of the vocal cords. He growls, “My _precioussss…”_

He laughs again, because that’s what Richie always makes him do, and some of the butterflies flutter down to his chest. If he’s not having heart palpitations, then he’s sort of in love. Oh, god. 

He fumbles with the fingers on his skin. They’re so long, like the rest of Richie. He thinks of the definition of _love_ and whether it can actually be defined at all. Is he in love? He’s not sure what that feels like, but it might be this. It might be the way that they begin to circle their fingers around each other without thinking. It might be the way that he can feel Richie’s gaze on him without looking. It might just be that he loves him. Fuck.

“What did you actually want to show me?” he asks quietly, finally meeting his eye once again. His face still burns, and does even more so when he sees Richie pull out his phone from his pocket — never was it a ring. 

He turns on the torch on his phone and Eddie wonders why, for a moment. It’s still semi-light outside. Not so much so that they can see the lines in their fingertips, but just enough that Eddie can still see the almost nervous expression on his face. He shines it at the floor for a moment, as if he’s thinking it over, and Eddie has to look down to see whether it’s there that he should be inspecting. 

“Sorry,” Richie says, adjusting the torch once again. He takes one deep breath. Eddie watches the cogs turning behind his glasses, behind his eyes. “Okay, so. This is gonna be embarrassing, but it can’t be any more embarrassing than what you just pulled, so…”

Eddie lightly hits his wrist. “Hey!”

“Sorry, sorry! Couldn’t help myself.” 

He turns the torch. It shines on the wood of the barrier on the side of the bridge, and Eddie can see numerous carvings, all ranging from brand new to years old. There’s nothing surprising about it. That’s what the Kissing Bridge is for, after all; sucking face and carving names. Not in the creepy Bowers way, of course, but people did actually do it more frequently than was spoken about. 

It takes him less than thirty seconds to find it. It’s definitely older than some of the other carvings on there; faded and worn, but still prominent, still caressed into the wood with feeling and purpose. 

It reads, _R + E._

There’s a pang in his chest. It hits him for several reasons. It’s the name of their playlist.

“I did it in seventh grade,” Richie tells him. “I’m surprised nobody carved over it, really.” Eddie reaches forwards, fingertips trailing over the wood. He’s not worried about splinters. Richie carries on, “It was, uh, when Tina Nelson had that huge crush on you. I got so mad, because I thought that you were gonna like her back. I ran here after school and did it. I think it was my way of… claiming you.” He squints. “That sounds weird.”

“Claiming me,” Eddie repeats.

“So that fucking beehive-Tina couldn’t have you. She could come here, write _T + E_ on this bridge, but I would have done it first.”

Eddie’s eyes flicker over to him. “I never liked her.”

He scoffs. “Yeah, I know that now, gaylord. You know, at the time, I don’t think that I even knew that I liked you, but I still did. If you know what I mean? So. Um. Yeah. Five years running. Beat that.”

He doesn’t know if he can. He can’t pinpoint any exact moment, or even any exact year. The process of falling for one of his best friends was one that was blurry and pure. It might have started from the moment they first met. He might still be falling for him everyday, starting anew. It wouldn’t surprise him, really. There are so many little things that continuously make the feelings flood back all over again. 

“This isn’t all that I have planned, by the way. Sitting on the dirty floor of a manky old bridge isn’t the exact definition of romantic, I know.”

Eddie can feel a lump in his throat. He disagrees. This is as romantic as he thinks it could get; screw candlelit dinners. 

Uncaring of bacteria and dirt, just for the moment, Eddie reaches down, grabs two ragged rocks off of the ground, and places one of them into Richie’s hand. He smiles at him, takes a deep breath, and proceeds without having to speak. He starts to carve in the letter _E_ again on his side. A new beginning. 

Richie stares at him with admiration for a moment. He matches the movement, lifting the rock to the wood. The _R_ begins to become clearer once again. 

They collaborate on the plus sign. 

*

They’re kissing in the car again. 

They’re in the backseat, now. Eddie’s pressed into the cheap material, Richie draped on top of him, pressing sweetly into his mouth. His tongue dips in and out of his lips, and every now and then, Richie bites down on his bottom lip and drags it out. He has a smug grin on his face as he does it. 

Richie had told him that he’d packed a makeshift picnic in the trunk of the car, but they’d somehow ended up here, like this. Eddie can’t even remember clambering inside, dragging Richie in after him. They are lucky that it’s such a frequent place for people to shack up. Nobody would think twice at a rocking, dark car on the Kissing Bridge.

And rock, it does. Eddie’s been kind of recluse about Richie’s face going near his dick throughout the month that they’ve been together. Sue him, but he’s the type of guy that likes to kiss and cuddle after sexual activity, and no offence, but kissing a mouth that’s just been on his dick is _not_ exactly at the top of his to-do list. 

That’s why, when he pulls away from the kiss for just a second to ask him, “Do you want to suck it?” Richie very much jumps at the chance. He nods, salivating like an animal, and presses one long, lingering kiss to him once again. Maybe it’s because he doesn’t think that Eddie will let him kiss him again tonight. He will. He’s come prepared with breath spray _and_ he knows there’s gum in the front.

Richie drags his teeth down his neck, presumably leaving behind all sorts of marks as he pauses to kiss it and suck lightly, occasionally. It’s not as brutal as he usually gets with his skin, but it’s affectionate, small. Eddie loves it. 

He loves it more when Richie moves down further, unbuttoning Eddie’s shirt and pressing appreciative little kisses to the dusting of hair at the base of his abdomen, hinting at the familiar territory that lay beneath the shorts beyond. His dick is already stirring once again, and the sight of Richie with his mouth so close does nothing to help ease the anticipation that it feels. 

“You sure about this?” Richie asks, fingers already delving beneath the waistband of his shorts but momentarily paused to give Eddie an out if he so wishes. He really doesn’t. 

They’ve done this once before. It was stressful to all fuck — they’d been in Richie’s bedroom, which, by the way, was completely void of a lock on the door. His sister had been home, just down the hall, forcing Eddie to slap his hand over his mouth at the slightest infringement of his breath and causing buckets of anxiety every time that Richie moved his tongue in a certain way. Eddie had been so scared of speaking – or making any noise at all – that he’d not warned Richie of his oncoming orgasm. 

Richie had found the fact that he’d choked on Eddie’s jizz _far_ more funny than it actually was. 

But it wasn’t going to be like that, this time, Eddie swears to himself quietly, chewing on one of his fingers before remembering that it had just been holding a dirty rock. He balls up his fists, settles them by his sides, and rests his head at an awkward angle against the car door. He wants to watch. 

Richie smiles when Eddie nods at him softly, pulling down the shorts to his knees when he raises his hips. He _is_ wearing underwear, though they really might as well not be there at all. They’re very tight, stretched around him and his erection, and they’re blue, because Eddie knows that’s Richie’s favourite colour. He hums his approval as he spreads Eddie’s legs apart, and he can feel a happy _pang_ in his dick when he starts to nip at his inner thighs, leading up like path to remember. The caress of his fingers echo the actions of his mouth, making him feel all too fuzzy inside. 

Eddie’s never one to really ask for things in (metaphorical) bed. He takes things as they come (literally) and doesn’t mind that fact. Richie seems to know what to do and how to do it, and he takes it slow when Eddie wants him to and follows his level of comfort closely, but Eddie still doesn’t often find it necessary. 

But now, he asks, with a bite of his lip, “Will you hurry up?”

Richie’s eyebrow raises in his familiar fashion. There’s a smile plastered on his face. His eyes shouldn’t look so criminal, looking up at him like that. He says, “Say please?”

He pouts, but says, “Please?” 

There’s a kiss on his skin again. “One more time?”

“Please, Rich. I want your freaking trashmouth on me.”

Another kiss.

“On my _dick_ , please. Now, Richie.”

“I’m starting to like this dominant side of you. Wanna see if I can find a paddle? Talk about my rosy cheeks?”

“ _Richie.”_

He shoots him one last wink before softly pulling on the blue fabric, pressing his face to the base of his dick and licking at his balls. Eddie’s innate reaction was to retreat, fall away from the man who was lapping at a place so dirty. 

What makes him so dizzy is that Richie genuinely seems like he enjoys doing this. Eddie hasn’t assured him _once_ that he’s showered, or cleaned at all recently, and yet he’s latching his mouth onto his balls and licking up at the base of his dick like it’s freaking ice cream. 

So he doesn’t fall away at all. Richie’s enjoying it, and so he allows himself the same relaxation. It does feel good, and years of his mother’s intrusion into his life had made him feel like that was a bad thing — but this is the opposite of a bad thing, he thinks, as Richie’s tongue slides up to the tip of his cock and flattens, letting it rest heavy on top of it. One hand grips it to hold it steady. Eddie can feel a thin layer of sweat beginning to form over his forehead. 

“Ready for my oral exam, Mr Kaspbrak,” he says, and he lifts his dick before pointing his tongue and rubbing it over his frenulum. Eddie’s toes curl, and his lip starts to hurt from how hard he’s biting down. “Do you think this’ll get me enough extra credit to pass your class?”

“Shut up,” Eddie whispers to him, and Richie does as he’s told for just a moment, circling the head of Eddie’s dick with his tongue and dipping it past his lips with minimal suction. Too early, he pulls off once again.

“What did the hurricane say to the coconut palm tree?”

Eddie grinds his teeth, tensing his jaw, ready to die. “Richie.”

“He said, hold your nuts, this is no ordinary blowjob!” And with that, and absolutely _no warning,_ Eddie feels his dick slide into a heavenly warmth, inching down Richie’s throat to bliss. The sound that rips from his chest is embarrassingly raw, and he slaps his hand to his mouth to try and minimise the betrayal of his feelings. 

This doesn’t feel like the last time that they’d tried this out. Last time, Eddie had been too caught up in his own brain to live in the moment and enjoy the way that Richie had been making him feel; but _now?_ Eddie allows the pleasure to engulf his being as Richie engulfs him, as he slips his lips up and down the sides of his dick, eyes fluttered shut. Eddie thinks that watching him may be a mistake; it’s such a wonderful sight – far more pure and lewd than porn is – that he may burst while just looking down at him. 

He reaches downwards to knot his fingers in the depths of the curls that he loves so much, and he, despite his position, blushes down to his bones when he feels Richie smile against him. He sort of understands the enthusiasm that his boyfriend feels – after all, Eddie loves nothing more than to make him feel good, provided that he knows that he’s washed – but it still shocks him how selfless Richie can be when it comes to Eddie. It’s like a dream. He’s like a dream, really. 

Eddie allows his mouth to get the better of him again when Richie pops off of the top of his dick, instead letting it fall, hard and wet against his stomach. Richie licks a great line up from bottom to top, then takes to suckling on the shaft as he so often did with Eddie’s neck. He doesn’t know how Richie’s gotten so good at this, considering the fact that he’d only gone down on Eddie once before, but God knows that he isn’t complaining. 

“Christ, Rich,” he says with a rich gasp. “Have you been doing your research, or what?”

Richie only momentarily stops lapping with his tongue to answer, “May-haps I asked for some advice?” 

“Advice?” he asks, startled. “Advice about — From who?”

“Old men on _Grindr._ Just kidding. Beverly. Aha! Just kidding again. I know I almost got you there. I did, didn't I?”

He had done, but Eddie wasn’t going to tell him that. 

“Tell – Tell me, c’mon!”

Richie’s lips flutter over his skin. His breath is hot. Even that makes Eddie’s heart skip. 

“You know,” he hums, and that smile should be illegal. “I have my ways.”

Eddie can only focus on the way that he’s looking at him, the way that his hand slips into a firm grip around his shaft. “Fuck, what?”

“Distracting you, am I? Making you crazy, Beyoncé?”

Eddie’s saved from the fiftieth pop culture reference since their date began by a familiar low buzzing. His phone is shining from the front seat, minutely bouncing around in a rhythmic shuffle that Eddie recognises. He’s about to say something about it when Richie’s index finger slips over his slit, gathering up his moisture on the pad of his skin. 

“You wanna answer it?” Richie asks him. 

“Mn — Let me see who it is first.”

Richie nods, a goofy smile taking over the sultry expression that had previously occupied his face. He blows a raspberry onto the back of Eddie’s thigh as he stretches forwards to the front. A familiar face floods his screen. 

“Who’s’a ringin’?”

“Stan,” Eddie says, unplugging his phone and falling back to the back seat, Richie settling curiously between his legs. 

“Stan never calls people.”

“I know.” He presses that big green button on instinct, worrying that something may be wrong. Stan would literally rather _die_ usually than speak to someone over the phone. “Stan? You alright?”

“ _You’re not answering your texts.”_

“Has something happened?” 

“ _Are you busy?”_

Eddie takes one look down at Richie, who has abandoned his lustful look towards the area in between Eddie’s legs to peer up at him, eyes filled with concern and mouth pulled into a frown. He knows how much Richie loves Stan. 

“No,” he says, technically lying, but that’s fine. A blowjob can wait if the poor guy is like, dying, he figures. “Has something happened?”

“ _Eddie_ , _I don’t know what to do. I fucking told him, you know, that I like fucking birds — not, not fucking birds, but that I like birds — and he was like… Oh? You like birds? That’s so cute. He called me cute. And he – he asked me to go birdwatching with him. Eddie, what the fuck, he asked me to go fucking birdwatching with him and you know what I fucking did? Do you know? I said, oh, yes, please, but make sure you don’t wear much. I meant because it’s fucking Summer and it’s fucking hot out, but no, because now I sound like a fucking pervert, and he’s gonna come birdwatching with me — what the fuck, by the way? — and he’s either going to follow what I said and not wear much, and I’m going to die, or he’s going to go the complete opposite and wear absolutely everything he can because he thinks I’m weird, and then he might get heatstroke, and then —”_

“Holy fuck,” Eddie interrupts, finally wrapping his head around the situation. “Stan, I thought you were in trouble.”

He feels the sigh of relief that Richie slowly releases, pressing a hand to his forehead to wipe some sweat away. Whether it had been there from their activities, or from the stress of contemplating his best friend’s status of dead or alive, Eddie couldn’t be too sure. 

“What is it?” he asks Eddie quietly, his eyebrows still knotted in a kind of worry. 

He mouths Mike’s name in return and Richie grins again, creating a circle with his thumb and index finger on his left hand and intruding it with the index on his right. 

“Shush!” Eddie laughs, relishing in the comfort as well. 

“Tell him to hurry up and fuck the guy already!” Richie calls, and the sheer look of admiration on his face as he watches him giggle makes Eddie feel in love.

“ _Sorry?”_ Stan says. “ _Oh, gross. Was that the Trashmouth?”_

Eddie pauses, says, “Was that the Trashmouth?” to Richie with one pointed eyebrow raised. Richie just licks his lips at that, drawing Eddie’s attention and collecting it all into one place. His teeth flash white beneath the swollen lips as one corner edges upwards, and then he’s pressing his tongue to the tip of Eddie’s dick again. His tongue circles the head, jerking his hand once again, trying to reclaim the erection that Eddie had somewhat lost in the brief panic. 

The sound that he makes is almost impossible to explain away, and Stan’s too perceptive and knows the two of them too well to pass over it so easily. It’s rather annoying now, when it comes to the fact that he’s a sassy little shit who will hold this against them until their Ruby Anniversary. 

“ _Oh my fucking God,”_ Stan deadpans. “ _Don’t fucking tell me that you two are fucking.”_

“You _know_ that we aren’t fu— _Richie,_ Jesus Christ, you can’t —”

“ _Don’t bring him into this!”_

“Free pass, Stannie-Boy!” Richie calls into the speaker, before spitting into his hand and continuing to jerk him faster. “It’s our anniversary!”

“ _No, it’s fucking not. It comes from the word anniversarius, which means returning yearly.”_

“Someone swallowed a Torah.”

“ _You’re mixing up Hebrew and Latin again, dumbass.”_

“Keep talking, Stannie, I think it’s helping Eds get off.”

“Richie!” he scolds, and yet it sort of slips into a moan halfway through. “Stan — I’ll – I’ll call you back, okay?”

He can hear the vicious sound of nails tapping away at a phone screen before Stan responds, “ _Yeah, you better,”_ and hangs up. 

Eddie throws his head back as he drops his phone, mouth hanging open with a flurry of breaths. Richie’s hand is wet and his mouth is wet and truly, every time that Eddie does this he ends up believing that he never appreciates the extent of it, of how the warmth extends over his skin and buries down to his very core. His cock aches with a thrilling and never ending rush of ecstasy that elicits ten thousand different whimpers and whispers of _fuck, yes, there, more, please, ‘Chee, yes, ‘Chee!_

Richie has a way of making Eddie feel like they’re the only two people in the entire universe. The omnipresent affection that shimmies around them in the form of semi-present stars and sparkles makes Eddie feel more magical together than he feels on any Christmas Eve. He had a dream once, that Richie was Santa Claus, and had woken up with an image of a wrinkly Richie with a big white beard which succeeded only in picturing himself growing old with him. 

He’s just reflecting on the fact that yet another one of Richie’s attempts at a blowjob has gone less than perfectly when he feels a slippery pad of a finger against the pucker that he’d _thought_ was still covered by his underwear. He’s not sure what it is — a mixture of panic and surprise and just a little hint of swelling anticipation, perhaps — but he’s shooting off instantly at the brush, spilling his seed down Richie’s throat. He doesn’t choke on it, this time, thankfully. In fact, he’s quite enthusiastically swallowing the remains, it seems, apparently taking note from Eddie’s recent preference (spitting was too dirty). 

He’s shuddering, sweating through his shirt, he’s sure of it, and the gasps that are stuttering out of his mouth draw Richie up. There’s a look in his eyes that, while still retaining the beautiful allure of sweet admiration, holds a pure hunger, one of lust and a desire so deep that it almost makes Eddie’s cock stir again. 

“Baby,” he’s whispering, advancing up Eddie’s body to press a kindly dusted litany of kisses to his neck because he knows that Eddie won’t like the taste of himself against his lips. “Christ, Eddie, baby, you have no _idea_ how fucking hot that was.”

He’s right. Eddie has no idea at all, because he’s still kind of unsure of what even happened. His mind is racing, turning around in ten different directions and banging against his love-struck skull. He leans into the kisses, his hands eager to get themselves tied up in the soft security of Richie’s hair again, and revels in the comfort of his post-orgasm bliss. 

“You’re so perfect, so perfect,” Richie hums to him. He’s rolling his hips down against Eddie’s thighs, and Eddie can feel his erection rubbing unceremoniously yet so welcome against his bare skin. He’s thankful that Richie had the sense to take off his jeans and his underwear before going at it — they didn’t intend on returning home for a while, yet. “God, you’re — you’re like, Gal Gadot, Kiera Knightley, _Ryan_ fucking _Reynolds_ level perfect, baby, and that shouldn’t even be _possible._ ”

Eddie grins lazily, his eyes half shut, holding onto his boyfriend like the fate of the world depends on it. He says, “It’s impossible to be on the same level as Ryan Reynolds.”

“No, no, _no,_ honey, baby, Eddie, darling, light of my life, you’re all three _combined._ And more — and – throw in some fucking Tom Holland, Chris Hemsworth, Harry Potter–Era Robert Pattinson, _mmn,_ Mar— Marlon _fucking_ Brando —”

“Well, when you add Marlon Brando, you’re just exaggerating,” Eddie hums, though he's grinning like an idiot. 

“He’s fucking funny, too.” He nips lovingly along Eddie’s jaw. “What did I do to deserve him, God?”

“Everything, Rich. You’re fucking perfect, yourself, for Christ sake. Have you — Have you seen yourself? God, have you seen yourself like this? You make me insane.”

So, Eddie’s never been great with his words. Sue him. 

“Eds,” Richie breathes, his own jaw dropping and his eyelids fluttering shut. Eddie recognises the signs. “Eds, Eds, _Eddie,_ baby. God. Fuck. ‘Need you so fucking bad.”

“You have me,” Eddie says, one hand slipping from his hair to caress his cheek. “You have all of me.”

“ _Need_ you,” he repeats. “‘Wanna — Wanna be in you, Eds. ‘Wanna make love to you so bad. Never a moment when I’m kissin’ you that I’m not thinking about either – _shit –_ cuffing you, or being inside you. No _idea_ what you do to me, honey, _fuck.”_

Eddie kisses him then, regardless of where his mouth has been, and Richie cums over Eddie’s still-exposed groin and his abdomen like Eddie’s pulled on some sort of lever to trigger it. Richie moaning into his mouth is Eddie’s favourite song.

They’re both covered in a sheen sheet of sweat and Eddie might get cum on Richie’s backseat if he tilts a little to the right, but he doesn’t care much right now. The bliss of the after is hurting washing over him and settling in his brain — that, and some other things. Various other things. Specifics aren’t entirely needed, surely.

_Fuck_ , he thinks. _He wants to fuck._

*

Eddie might be freaking out a little bit. 

Okay, so he might have thought nothing of it in the moment. Perhaps he tried to forget about it afterwards, when Richie had wiped them both off with a towel and they drove to a nice little area just outside of Derry to sit down and eat their picnic. He’d pushed it to the back of his mind for as long as he could, but the second that Richie had kissed him goodnight and led him to the door, it was over. 

Now, it’s three A.M. on a blazing hot Tuesday morning and Eddie’s thighs are burning from the heat of the laptop settled on his bare thighs. It’s barely noticeable, though, compared to the heat that’s crawling up his face at the sight of the instructions on the screen in front of him. 

Beside him is a half empty tub of vaseline and a douche that he’d ordered off of _Amazon_ without really knowing what it was used for. Reading it now, he’s pretty sure that he should have had some sense of this beforehand. Porn never once gave the impression that _this_ was an issue. 

He picks it up in one hand and stares at the door to his bathroom. The shower is still running. Shutting his eyes, taking a deep sigh, squeezing the bastard thing in his hand, he walks in, knowing that he won’t necessarily come out the same.

  
  
  


Eddie may never be the same again, and his innocence (or what little of it might have been left over after Richie had infiltrated his head (and his pants)) may never return to the state it once had been, but at least now he can say that he’s somewhat experienced. Prepared. 

With this section of the terrifying ritual over and done with, he waddles back to his bedroom only to plant his face straight into his sheets. He’s going to have to wash these in the morning, he notes, as his fingers trail to the tub of vaseline. He’s still wet, and he’s naked, and he can only thank his past self for ignoring his mother’s wishes and installing a lock onto his door before this moment. His laptop shines a skin-coloured light upon his face when he looks up, the flesh of a man who looks to be in a form of ecstatic euphoria — and surely, Eddie surmises, _surely_ he’s exaggerating the expression. 

He intends to find out. 

It seems easy enough, in his mind’s eye — the man on his screen is having a blast, and he only seems to have one finger inserted inside of him. Eddie’s watched men (and women, but that was a confusing stage of Eddie’s life) take two, three fingers inside of them, all just to top it off with an eight inch cock or a ten inch dildo. Whether or not assholes were designed for this kind of thing is up for a philosophical debate in which God and evolution may be brought up; but in the end, Eddie knows that it _can_ work. And so, he’ll make it so.

He spreads his legs. His hand ventures lower, mimicking the actions of the man in front of him after coating his index finger with vaseline. His hands are used to the texture of it and indeed welcome it now, his dick reacting in a way that almost seemed conditioned. It’s a welcome thing. He isn’t that aroused – at least, not as much as he believes he should be. His nerves are interrupting the flow of blood downwards.

It hurts, at first. When his second finger intrudes next to the index, the burn of the stretch alarms him so much that he almost gives up, but Eddie’s no quitter. If he doesn’t do it now, he figures that he never will, and it’s _definitely_ a vision that’s kept him up at night. The image of Richie’s fingers replacing his own keeps him going in a way that actually manages to make the whole thing easier, in a way. The idea of the man relaxes him. 

He’d be so gentle with him. So worried that he might hurt him. He’d probably kiss him as he does it, too, so Eddie closes his eyes slowly and allows himself to remember the way Richie kisses him, the way his fingers trace his jaw and cup his cheek like he’s caressing an angel, or a diamond. His fingers would be longer than his own, and so he presses them in further, willing his boyfriend to appear before him and take over the job. 

He wonders whether or not Richie has thought about Eddie doing this. He knows that the man has fantasised about having sex with him, and so the thought lingers in his mind. Would this arouse him – the idea that Eddie yearns so much for his touch that he prepares beforehand? 

And then he wonders more. Has Richie ever done this to himself? It is no secret that he is more sexually active than anybody else Eddie knows, at least outwardly. He discusses sex as if it is the Sunday Post and it thrills Eddie to his bones — but the boy has never discussed _this._ Never a joke has slipped through his lips about touching himself in this way. He supposes that it could be due to his fear of coming out, or even the internalised homophobia. Psychoanalysing Richie Tozier was a stubborn man’s job — Eddie was just there to love him, no matter what. 

The idea, though – the image that forms in his head of Richie late at night, delving this far whilst exploring his unspoken temptations about himself – it teases and elicits a response out of Eddie that he hadn’t quite been expecting. He can almost see it vividly: midnight black curls spread over a crystal pillow and glasses attractively askew, long arms stretched down and long fingers stretched in. The way his breath hitches whenever he’s about to cum. 

Eddie’s hard now. Almost completely. He curses being a typical teenage boy before he reminds himself of his position and considers the fact that it could be used to his advantage. He reaches to hold onto the shaft of his dick, subconsciously shifting his hips forwards as he does so, and he feels such an immediate and unfamiliar thrum of pleasure buzz through his entire body that a gasp escapes him uninvited. 

It takes him half a minute to recover partially. When he does, he can’t resist the pull, and he moves his hips again. Doing so allows him to actually understand what had occurred, and Eddie suddenly believes all of those recounts about the prostate being very much true, after all. He wiggles his fingers and physically feels his cock twitch in his hand when he brushes over the bundle of nerves there inside of him. A bead of sweat rolls down his burning face. 

In minutes, he’s rocking his body against his fingers so vigorously that he’s sure that he’s making the bed creak. His wrists are both going to ache in the morning and he’s going to have to drain an entire bottle of hand sanitiser (no matter how thoroughly he cleaned down there) but he doesn’t give a _fuck,_ frankly, because his head is tipped back and his sheets are scratching his knees from the awkward angle, and all he can think is _Richie_ and _Please_ and _He could do this even better._ He probably could, even though _better_ doesn’t feel like it should be a word in his vocabulary at this second. Is it possible to achieve a world better than a utopia? If so, it would probably be like Richie to find it. 

He doesn't believe that he’s finished himself off this quickly since perhaps the first time he dared touch himself without the fear of hair growing on his palms or going blind. It’s so unexpected, too. He figures that he’s too caught up on the pleasure of one place to be able to see the other and the reality of being able to feel like that finally sinks in. Double the pleasure. Double it again, with Richie. 

He showers again before he returns and strips his bed, considering himself lucky for the spares that he keeps in his hamper. His legs are shaking a little, and his butt kind of aches still, but he figures that’s the price to pay for that kind of absolute bliss. 

He picks up his phone. 

**MESSAGES**

**loserzz (34 New Messages)**

**Richie (3 New Messages)**

**Stan (1 New Message)**

He opens Richie’s first, his usual blush rising up his face as he recalls the last conversation that the two of them had shared before Eddie conducted his – er – experiment.

**Richie**

**Eddie (02:47):** _i’m going to take a shower now._

**Richie (02:49):** _okie dokie honey i’ll make sure to tune in ;))))))_

**Richie (02:49):** _remember coz my secret cameras heehheehehe_

**Richie (02:56):** _wait eds why tf are you showering at THREE AM ??!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!! ʕʘ‿ʘʔ_

He places a hand to his mouth to stop a laugh from slipping out as he rolls his eyes. If Richie _did_ have secret cameras installed in Eddie’s bathroom, he would certainly have not been expecting _that._ Swiping off of the chat before reading the remaining texts — just to tease him, make him wait a little — he selects Stanley’s message, slips of anxiety thrumming through his bones.

**Stan**

**Stan (02:55):** _what did u wanna discuss_

Ah — there was the problem. It isn’t that he _wants_ to tell Stanley about his experiment, because he feels like that would be on the cusp of extremely weird, especially considering the fact that not even Richie knows, but Stan and Eddie had been relatively open when talking about all things homosexual lately. Eddie’s the only one who knows about Stan (Richie notwithstanding — Eddie’s never outright told him that Stan is gay, but the boy is sometimes too smart for his own good and Stan and Eddie just happen to be the two people that he knows best in the world). 

It’s mainly Stan ranting to him about Mike — Mike did this, Mike did that, what do you think that means, Eddie? Am I reading it wrong? And Eddie’s not the best person for asking that kind of advice by any means, because he’s not sure whether Mike actually _is_ not straight, or whatever, but sometimes he sees the way that he looks at Stan whenever _he’s_ not staring at _him_ and Eddie then has to reevaluate. 

Now, though, it’s Stan’s turn for some advice. 

**Eddie (03:16):** _how do I ask Richie to have sex with me._

He sincerely hopes that the boy hasn’t gone to sleep yet because wouldn’t _that_ just be a right kick in the teeth. A funny thing to wake up to, though, and he snorts into his wrist (it’s already beginning to ache). 

**loserzz**

**Richie (02:50):** _you guys wanna know something i found out the other day_

**Bill (02:50):** _no, not really_

**Richie (02:51):** _apparently jews right_

**Richie (02:51):** _they cut Holes in their bedsheets right_

**Richie (02:51):** _and then they put the sheet between themselves and their partners right_

**Bill (02:52):** _right._

**Richie (02:52):** _and then they just Put their DICKS through the hole and that’s how they have sex._

**Bill (02:53):** _why are you so obsessed with Stan’s sex life dude?_

**Richie (02:53):** _AT NOT ONE POINT DID I MENTION STAN_

**Richie (02:54):** _HELLO?_

**Stan (02:55):** _pretty sure that’s just an urban legend lmao_

**Stan (02:55):** _i’m also pretty sure that it’s completely wrong bcos jewish sex laws encourage full body contact_

**Stan (02:56):** _read somewhere that you can cite ‘the sheet’ as a reason to get divorced lmao_

**Stan (02:56:)** _fact check next time luv x_

**Richie (02:57):** _but sheet sex sounds so cool (;_;)_

**Bill (02:58):** _no, it doesn’t_

**Richie (02:58):** _shut up jorts boy_

**BILL HAS LEFT THE GROUP**

**Bev (03:01):** _why did bill leave?????_

**Stan (03:03):** _richie called him jorts boy_

**Richie (03:03):** _jorts boy gone_

**Richie (03:04):** _rip jorts boy_

**Bev (03:05):** _go to sleep trashmouth_

**Richie (03:05):** _maybe jorts boy go burn jorts_

**Stan (03:06):** _i agree with beverly go to sleep dumbass_

**Richie (03:08):** _no sleep_

**Richie (03:08):** _eddie spaghetti in shower_

**Richie (03:09):** _no thoughts head empty just eddie nakey and wet_

**Stan (03:11):** _just did not need that image in my head_

**Richie (03:12):** _yeah it BETTER not be in anybody’s heads if you don’t wanna go for a freaking brawl !!!!!!!_

**Bev (03:13):** _pretty sure all of us could beat you .. and the thought is so tempting … ;)_

**Richie (03:14):** _miss marsh tread delicately_

**Stan (03:15):** _what the fuckis going on_

**Richie (03:15):** _fuckis_

**EDDIE HAS ADDED BILL TO THE GROUP**

**Eddie (03:17):** _rich stop being a dick to bill_

**Richie (03:17):** _JORTS BOY!!!!!!_

**Eddie (03:17):** _and stop talking about me naked_

**Bill (03:19):** _I leave for ten minutes and you guys start talking about eddie naked?_

**Bev (03:19):** _lmaooo sorry eddie_

**Stan (03:20):** _eddie check pm_

**Richie (03:21):** _omg are you guys sexting…?_

**Richie (03:21):** _can i watch_

**Eddie (03:22):** _On my way! stan_

**Richie (03:22):** _)))))): check my pms too eddie bear_

**Eddie (03:23):** _no._

**Richie (03:23):** _!_

He shoves down the weird feeling that he gets in his chest at the presence of the boy on the other side of the screen and ignores their private conversation flashing with new messages at the top of his screen. Stan’s replied to him now, and there’s a nervous twitch of his finger as he presses on the new messages from him, too. He doesn’t expect judgement from Stan, not where this is involved, really, but there’s still a part of him that – worries.

**Stan**

**Eddie (03:16):** _how do I ask Richie to have sex with me._

**Stan (03:17):** _holy fuck what_

**Stan (03:17):** _eddie_

**Stan (03:17):** _eddie_

**Stan (03:17):** _eddie_

**Stan (03:18):** _you want to go alll the way ?????_

**Stan (03:18):** _really don’t think you’re goin to have to do much asking eddie_

**Stan (03:19):** _he would give up his like left arm to do that u know that_

**Stan (03:19):** _answer me now_

**Stan (03:19):** _are u sure ur ready eddie_

**Stan (03:19):** _answer me get off gc i will hit you_

**Stan (03:19):** _eddie_

**Stan (03:19):** _get off gc_

**Eddie (03:24):** _i’m sure._

**Eddie (03:24):** _i am ready._

**Eddie (03:25):** _i don’t know how to approach it._

**Stan (03:25):** _approach it_

**Stan (03:25):** _i_

**Stan (03:26):** _u don’t have to talk about it if you don’t want to_

**Stan (03:26):** _like_

**Stan (03:26):** _you guys could probably just make out and go from there_

**Eddie (03:27):** _i want to talk about it. what if he doesn’t want to do it._

**Stan (03:28):** _it physically hurts how dumb u two can be_

**Eddie (03:30):** _:(_

As much as he may be overthinking the entire situation, he’s sure that he isn’t wrong to make a big deal out of it. It _is_ a big deal, after all, right? The two of them would both be losing their virginity, for crying out loud. As if that isn’t something that you stay talking about for the rest of your life. 

And though Richie had said some – things, the last time that they had been so intimate, that doesn’t necessarily mean that he’d been entirely truthful, or in his right mind. It was the heat of the moment. It’s entirely too presumptuous, Eddie thinks, to automatically assume that the boy would be okay with such a monumental thing, just because he’s more open about such aspects than others. 

Eddie wants to make sure that Richie’s as okay with doing this kind of thing as he knows Richie would like to make sure with him. He doesn’t want to just assume. It’s a big thing for the _both_ of them. 

And what if Richie wants to do it differently to how Eddie had imagined? What if Richie wants to be the one on the bottom? Eddie hadn’t especially considered that possibility, and if _that_ is the case then the idea of it coming spontaneously is entirely out of the question. Eddie’s not sure that he would mind that turn of events, though. Getting to do anything with Richie sounds appealing to him. 

**loserzz**

**Bev (03:25):** _wow rich can’t believe stan stole ur man ):_

**Richie (03:26):** _i kno… it’s going to be hard. but i can get through this_

**Richie (03:26):** _right now_

**Richie (03:26):** _he’s probably slow dancin with a beach-blond(e) tramp_

**Richie (03:27):** _and he’s probably getting frisky_

**Richie (03:27):** _right now_

**Bev (03:27):** _he’s probably buying him some fruity lil drink cos he can’t shoot whisky ): ):_

**Richie (03:28):** _right now ….. … .._

**Bev (03:28):** _he’s probably up behind him with a pool stick showin him how to_

**Bev (03:28):** _(i forgot )_

**Richie (03:29):** _how to shoot a cOmbO_

**Richie (03:30):** _aNd He DOn’t KNoW…_

**Eddie (03:31):** _what is going on.????_

**Bev (03:31):** _I DUG MY KEY INTO THE SIDE_

**Richie (03:31):** _OF HIS PRETTY LITTLE SOUPED UP FOUR WHEEL DRIVE_

**Bev (03:32):** _CARVED MY NAME INTO HIS LEATHER SEATS_

**Eddie (03:32):** _WHAT IS HAPPENING._

**Richie (03:33):** _I TOOK A LOUISVILLE SLUGGER TO BOTH HEADLIGHTS_

**Bev (03:33):** _SLASHED A HOLE IN ALL FOUR TYRES_

**Richie (03:34):** _MAYBE.. Next time… HE’LL THINK .. BEE4 He CHEATS ＼＼\٩(๑`^´๑)۶//／／_

**Eddie (03:35):** _should i call my mother am i having an aneurysm._

**Richie (03:35):** _miss marsh i’m in love with you <33333 _

**Bev (03:36):** _too bad i only have eyes for eddie /:_

**Richie (03:36):** _fuck… not you too_

**Richie (03:36):** _eds baby stop making everyone fall in love with you_

**Eddie (03:37):** _sorry everyone prefers me to u_

**Eddie (03:37):** _including ur dad_

**Richie (03:37):** _and hes FUNNY NOW too … eds gets off a good one_

**Eddie (03:38):** _ >:) <3 _

**Richie (03:38):** _omg omg omg_

**Richie (03:38):** _ <333333333333333333 _

  
  


**Richie**

**Richie (02:58):** _now i’m thinking abt you showering :(_

**Richie (02:58):** _why actually are you showering this late // early wtf_

**Richie (02:59):** _spaghetti used confusion! it’s super effective! trashmouth lost 10HP!_

**Richie (03:00):** _witching hour bay bee_

**Richie (03:00):** _do u wanna watch a witch film when u come over :**********_

**Richie (03:26):** _my heart .. aches … my babey ignorin me .._

**Richie (03:28):** _is it because stan’s circumcised ;_;_

**Eddie (03:40):** _rich u r also circumcised._

**Richie (03:41):** _•////• he .. he remembers …_

**Eddie** **(03:41):** _of course i do._

**Eddie (03:42):** _and what kind of witch film?_

**Richie (03:42):** _nothing too scary i promise_

**Richie (03:43):** _hocus pocus :)_

**Eddie (03:45):** _idk what that is._

**Richie (03:45):** _EDS._

**Eddie (03:46):** _its okay you can show me. :)_

**Eddie (03:46):** _can i ask you something._

**Richie (03:47):** _is it about hocus pocus?_

**Eddie (03:49):** _no._

**Richie (03:50):** _consider me sweaty_

**Richie (03:50):** _shoot baby_

**Eddie (03:51):** _have you ever fingered yourself?_

He drops his phone on the bed and hides his hot face behind his hands before he even sees that Richie has read it – which he knows he has. Richie always reads his messages straight away. Especially at this time, which, he realises with a gulp, is entirely too late — his mother is going to fret about him sleeping in, and if he doesn’t sleep in, she’s going to fret about him looking too tired. 

He’d asked it on a whim, really. A festering curiosity that had evolved since he’d had the idea. It’s an attractive one, too, and not one that’s particularly a hardship to imagine. It’s also a gateway into that conversation that Eddie knows he’s going to have to have with the other man, no matter what. If he introduces it now, it won’t be so weird when he brings up the idea of… actually… making love. Eddie had liked how Richie’d phrased it in the so-called _heat of the moment._ It felt like more than just sex. 

His phone buzzes. Once, twice, three times. The it stops. And then again. Richie had to have some time to process the text, it seems. He tentatively picks his phone back up and unlocks it with his breath caught in his throat. 

**Richie**

**Richie (03:55):** _i_

**Richie (03:55):** _uh_

**Richie (03:55):** _eds a ha ahahha what_

**Richie (03:56):** _what._

**Eddie (03:57):** _sorry. WSorry. oh god._

**Richie (03:57):** _no no no no don’t apologise_

**Richie (03:57):** _just_

**Richie (03:58):** _whew_

**Richie (03:58):** _where did that come from_

**Eddie (03:59):** _i just did it._

**Richie (04:02):** _oh fuck_

**Richie (04:02):** _thats_

**Richie (04:02):** _did you_

**Richie (04:02):** _like it …?........._

**Eddie (04:03):** _yeah. i did._

**Eddie (04:04):** _i didn’t at first because it hurt but then i touched something and it felt like i was literally touching heaven._

**Richie (04:04):** _oh_

**Eddie (04:04):** _oh?_

**Richie (04:05):** _sorry my neanderthal brain is finding it extremely hard to focus on typing right now_

**Eddie (04:05):** _i did it because of what you said._

**Eddie (04:05):** _i wanted to see what it was like._

**Richie (04:06):** _what did i say_

**Eddie (04:07):** _you said that you wanted to make love to me._

**Eddie (04:07):** _you said that there wasn’t a moment when you’re kissing me that you’re not thinking about either Cuffing me or_

**Eddie (04:07):** _or being inside me._

**Richie (04:08):** _horny on main_

**Richie (04:08):** _i wasn’t lying u know_

**Richie (04:09):** _is that something that you wanna do?_

**Eddie (04:10):** _ues._

**Eddie (04:10):** _yes.*_

**Eddie (04:10):** _i wanted to talk about this in person but i just wanted to know if you’ve done it._

**Richie (04:12):** _i have_

**Richie (04:12):** _once_

**Richie (04:13):** _it just made me feel guilty because i was so deep in the closet i could see shawn mendes so i never did it again_

**Eddie (04:14):** _stop talking about shawn mendes._

**Eddie (04:14):** _i understand though._

**Richie (04:15):** _jealous ;P_

**Eddie (04:16):** _you’re no camilla cabello._

**Richie (04:16):** _god i fucking hope not_

**Richie (04:17):** _well now i have a very confused boner_

**Richie (04:17):** _talk about this again irl?_

**Richie (04:18):** _send pics?_

**Eddie (04:20):** **_[ 1 IMAGE ATTACHED ]_ **

**Richie (04:20):** _OH BABY!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!_

**Richie (04:21):** _those undies r cute as heck_

**Richie (04:21):** _so….can i see behind ;pppp_

**Eddie (04:22):** _do you want me to just take them off._

**Richie (04:23):** _more than anything_

**Richie (04:23):** _but no :( … not until ur bday_

**Eddie (04:24):** _fuck you and your morality._

**Eddie (04:25):** **_[ 4 IMAGES ATTACHED ]_ **

**Richie (04:27):** _what a fuckign sexy boy_

**Richie (04:27):** _LIGHT OF MY LIFE_

**Richie (04:28):** _do you fucking see yourself baby_

**Richie (04:28):** _holy fuck_

**Richie (04:28):** _your ass_

**Richie (04:29):** _that shouldn’t be fucking ALLOWED_

**Eddie (04:30):** _i’m blushing_

**Eddie (04:30):** **_[ 2 IMAGES ATTACHED ]_ **

**Richie (04:31):** _i’m literally gonna cum without even touching myself_

**Eddie (04:31):** _why aren’t you touching yourself then?_

**Richie (04:31):** _fuck_

  
  
  


**loserzz**

**Bev (04:31):** _ive got carrie underwood stuck in my head now thanks rich /:_

**Stan (04:31):** _ugh_

**Stan (04:31):** _i really expected better_

**Stan (04:31):** _not from richie_

**Stan (04:31):** _but you :/_

**Bev (04:32):** _sorry stan pls forgive ):_

**Richie (04:32):** **_[ 1 IMAGE ATTACHED ]_ **

**Bev (04:32):** _WHAT THE FUCK_

**Stan (04:33):** _WHAT. THE. FUCK._

**Bev (04:33):** _WHAT TBTKREIFFJRKFG_

**Bev (04:33):** _RICHIE._

**Stan (04:34):** _RICHIE TOZIER_

**Eddie (04:34):** _oh fuck_

**Stan (04:34):** _Eddie._

**Richie (04:36):** _PLEASE DELETE THAT IM SO SORRY LOVE U ALL SORRY X 300000 LOVE U SORRY XXXXXXXXXXXXX_

*

“I can't look at you,” Stan says. “I mean, it was a struggle anyway, but now I’m officially traumatised.”

“You’re just mad that everything I said about my wang being longer than your arm is true.”

Eddie sighs. “I know I was.”

“It is not longer than my arm.”

“It so is. Wanna compare?”

“I do not _ever_ want to see that thing again in my entire life.”

“C’mon, Stanny, you know you wanna.”

Eddie frowns, sitting himself firmly in Richie’s lap. “Too bad,” he says, squeezing Richie’s cheeks between his fingers. “Nobody else is going to see it. Right?”

Light fingers brush over the skin underneath his shirt in comfort. They speak their own language to him. For him. Reassurance. Trust. Eddie preens for them.

“Listen, I‘ve said that I’m sorry, guys,” Richie drawls to the room. “My penis is not _that_ traumatising.”

“Debatable,” Ben hums. 

“I’m going to become self-conscious, soon.”

Eddie places a soft kiss to his pout. “I like it, so.”

He feels a grin stretch underneath his lips. His hands are still gentle on his hips. “That’s all I care about.”

“Richie’s dick is ingrained into my brain forever,” Beverly hums. 

“Okay, heteros are banned from speaking from this point onwards.”

“That’s homophobic,” Stanley says clearly.

“I have no fucking idea what to say to that.”

“No heteros were supposed to speak, Stan,” Mike says.

“They still aren’t,” he replies.

Eddie raises an eyebrow at Richie. Richie raises an eyebrow back. He kisses him, because what the hell?

“C- Can we speak now?” Bill asks. “Do you think they’re t - too distracted to notice us?”

“Probably, judging by the way Richie’s grabbing Eddie’s ass.” Beverly’s smirk is evident through her speech, even though Eddie’s eyes are shut. 

He hears Stan scoff. “We should design a ban on excessive PDA.”

“This _is_ homophobic!” Richie demands, much to Eddie’s shock as he jumps in Richie’s arms. “Would there be this much fuss if Eddie was a woman?! No, I tell you, there would not! Ludicrous! Absurd!”

“Yes, there would,” Stan deadpans. “I don’t want to see my best friends get it on. Especially after I’ve just seen one of their dicks.”

“Do you want to see Eddie’s, too?”

“I would rather kill myself.”

Beverly rolls her eyes at him. “Come on, Stan. They’re cute.”

“You haven't been on the phone with them whilst one of them is receiving a blowjob, Marsh.”

Eddie groans. “That was one time, Stan.”

Stan scoffs – again – and throws his head backwards. His voice pitches higher. “ _Uh - Ah!_ Richie! You can’t! Ah! Richie!”

Eddie feels his cheeks heat up again and he reaches back to throw a pillow at Stan’s face. It smacks him at such a force that he falls backwards. His body tumbles into Mike’s lap. He relishes in the look on his face. It’s almost as red as he assumes his own is.

“My own darn house,” Richie sighs. “I’m being abused in my own house. I let you in, I tell you _mi casa es su casa…_ And now… And now _esoy traicionado…_ ”

“You can’t sp- speak Spanish, Rich.” 

“I can! I’m getting a fucking A minus in Señora Da Rosa’s class, _gracias._ _Me gusta chupar espagueti._ ” 

Eddie frowns. “I heard spaghetti, and I’m not happy with it.”

“You okay?” Mike is asking, his palms resting gently on Stan’s arms. Stan’s gazing at him like he holds the secrets to the universe in his eyes. He nods, but doesn’t move. 

“Did anybody s- see Audra’s Instagram p- post?” Bill asks, breaking the silence that had settled as they had all stared at Stan. “P- Patrick Hocksetter’s been given community ser- service.”

“Why did Audra Phillips post about that?” Beverly asks. 

“They’re dating,” Ben says. “I heard Sandy McDougall talking about it when I was walking to the grocery store.”

“Patrick and A- Audra?” Bill says, a frown slipping onto his face. “She cou- could do _so_ much better.”

“Always got gay vibes from Patty,” Richie comments offhandedly. “You know, when he wasn’t calling me a queer. Oh my god, it’s like _Glee_ . He only did it because _he_ was gay all along!”

“Patrick is not gay,” Eddie says. “He’s a psychopath.”

“The two are not mutually exclusive, baby. Ask Darren Criss. No. I mean, not Darren Criss. I mean Andrew Cunanan.”

When Eddie looks over from Richie’s enchanting eyes to Mike and Stan, who are still impossibly close, he feels for a moment that he is surrounded by a warm sensation of love. Richie squeezes his ass and he feels it again. Ben and Bill are gazing at Beverly and Stan is gazing at Mike and when he looks back — Richie is gazing at him. It’s nice. 

It’s brilliant.

*

His hands are slipping over rose coloured flesh. They’ve paused _The Silence of the Lambs_ and the blood on the screen should really be a turn off. Floods of it. The entire television is filled with the scarlet that spills onto their skin. The only light in the room. Not even the stars can rival it. 

Pecks of intimacy find their way up Richie’s legs. His thighs shake under Eddie’s fluttering touch and the content sigh that it brings urges him onwards. His lips aren’t shy of this area by this point in time and he doesn’t intend to make them so. 

His lips take him in as they have done numerous times. It’s almost a habit, now. They entrap the flesh that enters through them and his tongue does the rest for the work for him. He sucks and licks in all of the ways that he knows Richie likes – the ways that make him moan the loudest and dig his fingers deeper into Eddie’s hair. 

When Eddie gets into it, though, he _gets into it._ His eyes squeeze shut almost enough that tears threaten to slip out of his eyes as he opens his throat enough for Eddie to allow him a comfortable welcome. He knows Richie’s hums of approval and thanks well enough now that he can slip and slide up and down his cock like he’s a professional. Sometimes, he wishes that his mother could see him in times like these; _not at all_ in a weird, Freud kind of way (keep any Oedipus and Electra complexes _away_ from him, please — he’s quite sure he has enough complexes already), but just so that he can rub it in her face. He wants her to know the fact that her upbringing of trying to keep him ever so protected and innocent has been ineffective in almost every way. 

His lips become slippery with a mixture of precum and saliva and it’s gratefully easier to then proceed up and down his dick. Richie is writhing, and Eddie can tell that he’s aching to launch his hips upwards and fuck into his mouth — but Eddie doesn’t let him. He likes to be the one to move, a sense of lust and hunger taking over his senses. Richie’s dick does that to him, he guesses. That’s not weird at all. (Another complex?)

He pulls his mouth off of him just to slide his lips along the vein along the bottom that he likes. His tongue teases him in licks when he can, and when Richie looks down at him, the red hue blushing his entire body, his mouth drops in an utter paramour of a moan. Every time Eddie does this, Richie gazes at him like he’s seeing it for the first time, a reminder of his fantasies and dreams and a pleasant surprise of reality. 

He finishes down Eddie’s throat with his name leaving his lips again. He whispers sweet nothings as Eddie pushes himself up his body, connecting their lips and it _still_ makes Eddie feel tingly when he thinks about how little Richie cares about where his mouth has been. 

“Eds,” Richie hums, stroking Eddie’s cheek with his thumb. “Can I eat you out?”

Eddie’s eyes bulge. His erection is ecstatic at the suggestion. “Uh,” he says, “My butt?”

“Yeah, unless you’re hiding a pussy somewhere down there.”

He rolls his eyes. “Shut up, that’s — Um. Yes. Yeah. If you want to.” 

“Really?” he asks, pausing, a grin immediately taking place on his face. “Can I?”

“You’re too excited about that!”

“Of course I am! I wanna do everything with that butt.”

He doesn’t hold back his smile, pressing a small kiss to the corner of Richie’s mouth. “Not now, though. Next time?”

Richie nods fervently, his smile turning open-mouthed. “Please. Do you want me to jerk you off, now?”

“Is my dick finally getting that across to you?” Eddie says, eyebrow raised, pushing his crotch against his side. He hums appreciatively when Richie reaches down to stroke him. 

There’s a technique that Richie has with his hands that is absent when Eddie touches himself, and he’s never been able to pin down exactly what it is that he does that makes the experience feel about ten times better. Maybe it’s the way that he swipes his thumb to the sensitive part of his dick underneath the head every so often, or the way his big hands can cover pretty much the entire thing without even trying, or maybe it’s a sweet culmination of everything. Maybe it’s just Richie. 

Eddie’s panting, staring into Richie’s eyes as he lets himself be watched thoroughly. Sometimes, there’s a look in Richie’s eyes that conveys some fleeting disbelief at what he’s witnessing; what he has acquired himself. Eddie understands that more than anybody. 

He’s feeling himself approach the familiar bliss of an orgasm when Richie asks, “Can I finger you next time, as well?”

The breath that escapes him is shaken and his eyes roll backwards with his head. “God, _yes.”_

He says, “Yeah?” and tightens his grip for a second like it’s encouragement. 

“Yeah, yeah,” he pants, “You can – You can finger me. _Please._ Want you to make me feel good, Rich.”

“I can make you feel good, baby. You feel good now?”

“Mhm.” He nods. “Always m — make me feel good.”

“Can I make love to you?”

Eddie’s jaw twitches. “Mm?”

“Next time, I mean — or, whenever, whenever you want — I wanna – I think I’d wanna do it, if you want to.”

“ _Richie,”_ he moans, the words driving all the way to his bones. “Yes, yeah, _yes,_ want you — want you inside. It feels _so good,_ Richie.”

“You like touching yourself there, huh.”

“Think of you,” he says. “I think of you when I do it.”

“Think about me fucking you, baby?” He presses his thumb into the tip of his dick, and Eddie chokes out a pleased whine. “Rocking you back on my dick?”

“ _Everything,”_ he gasps, reaching up and dragging him into another deep kiss. Eddie likes to be kissed while he orgasms. He hopes that’s not another complex. (He’s starting to believe that he doesn’t really know what a complex is.) 

It’s the truth, when he says everything. Eddie’s thought of Richie fucking him in pretty much every position that he knows exists. He’s also begun to think about _him_ fucking _Richie_ in a lot of positions, as well, because _holy fuck, would that be hot._ Eddie can only imagine how it must feel to bury your dick somewhere so hot and so tight — after discovering the heaven of sticking your dick in somebody’s mouth, he’s definitely not averse to venturing further. Richie would look so good, too, hair and glasses askew and begging for _deeper, harder._ Or maybe he’d still be the one in charge; straddling Eddie’s hips and lowering himself down onto him, moving at his own pace and making Eddie beg to get his own dick deeper. 

He sends a hot whimper against Richie’s tongue as he spills out over Richie’s hand, curling his fingers against Richie’s cheek when he doesn’t stop moving his fucking hand. However long he kisses him for, he can’t tell. He’s only briefly aware of pulling away with a gasp and falling back against the pillow, a dizzy grin on his face. He faux-gags when Richie raises his hand and begins to lick Eddie’s seed off of his fingers.

“That’s so gross,” he tells him endearingly. “Go get a Kleenex.”

“You taste better than human flesh,” he says, and for a second, in the sick lighting of the room, it looks as though Richie’s licking blood off of his hand, and Eddie shouldn’t find that sexy. 

“You’re a cannibal too now, huh?” Eddie asks, searching for the remote to unpause the episode blindly. 

“Would you still love me if I was?” Richie asks, a joking tone in his voice but not on his face as soon as they’re out. Neither of them speak for a minute as they let his words settle in. 

“Yes,” Eddie whispers, resting his head on his shoulder.

He feels Richie exhale, and smiles.

*

Beverly is painting his nails. It’s a fruitless effort, considering that he’s going to have to take it all off before he goes home, but he kind of really likes it. He doesn’t get the chance to hang out with her alone, often. It’s therapeutic. He doesn’t have a lot of sweet female influence in his life. 

She’s not the best at doing it, either, not that Eddie has particularly high standards. There’s only so much light that the trap door lets into the clubhouse. He has lilac dashed onto the skin around his nails and she’s accidentally gotten some on her forehead, somehow, but they’re both laughing about it and he doesn’t really mind, anyway.

“So,” she says, dipping the brush into the pot somewhat delicately. “Tell me everything.”

Eddie chuckles nervously. “Everything?”

“You and Richie!” she exclaims. “You guys still going good?”

“Yeah,” he says, blood creeping up to stain his cheeks red. “It’s, um. Going really good. When he’s not being super annoying.”

She shares a laugh at that. “I can imagine.”

“The other day he shouted _vibe check_ in my face before kissing me and I screamed.”

“That’s such a fucking Richie thing to do.”

“I know,” he says, smiling. She has a returning smirk on her face.

“I don’t know how I didn’t see it, you know. Before we caught you guys.” 

“Well, it was only two days.”

“No, I mean… It’s hard to describe.” She dabs the wet brush to his thumb. “You guys have always kind of had something special.”

“That’s what Stan said. He said that he’d always known, though. Like I believe him.”

“I don’t know,” she hums. “Stan can be pretty perceptive. He dared Richie to give you that hickey, didn’t he?”

“I guess.” He shrugs. His thumb moves a little and she gets more on his skin. They both laugh again. “Richie dared Stan and Mike to make out, and they aren’t a thing.” Eddie doesn’t feel guilty. It’s only a half-lie.

“Huh. Mike and Stan.” She looks up at him through her eyelashes, raises an eyebrow. “That would be pretty cute.”

“They’re not together.”

“Have you asked?”

“I would be able to tell!”

“Eddie, you couldn’t tell that Richie was gay and you had a crush on him.” 

He pouts. Only because it’s true. “What about you and Bill?”

She tries to act nonchalant, but he sees the way a smile ticks at the corner of her concentrated mouth. “What about me and Bill?”

“You so like him.”

“Hush!” she says quickly, though they’re alone. “I don’t know. He’s been talking a lot about Audra lately.”

“Audra’s with Patrick. Plus, she literally looks _just_ like you.” He purses his lips. “And Patrick doesn’t wash his hands after he goes to the bathroom, and he’s been touching her, so there’s at least a seventy percent chance that she’s got adenovirus.”

“She’s a nice girl.”

“She’s dating a freaking asshole. She watched him bully us all for years and she still thinks there’s something redeeming about him. Like, does she even know the likelihood of him reoffending? Because it’s pretty damn high, you know.”

“Stop moving your hand.”

“Sorry.”

“Ben’s really nice too, you know,” she says, no tone to her voice to give away what she means. 

“Yeah. I know he is. What about it?”

She shrugs, brushing some hair behind her ear and painting some strands lilac in the process. “I don’t know. I guess I feel bad for him.”

“But he’s not lonely anymore. He’s got us!”

“Yeah,” she says, unconvincing. “You’re right. Anyway, tell me, how far have you and Richie gone?”

Eddie feels like he might have whiplash from the extreme change of topic. “Huh?”

“Oh, come on! Spill? This is what girls normally talk about when they’re at like, sleepovers and shit, but I’ve never had any girl friends to do it with, so I’m asking you instead.”

He tries not to blush as his mind races back to Richie’s bedroom. The words exchanged. Biting his lip does little to convince Beverly of his innocence, but he can’t really help it when he thinks of Richie. His smile is sheepish.

“I don’t know?”

She laughs. “Sure you don’t. Well, I do hope you’re being hygienic. And safe.”

“You’re telling _me_ to be hygienic? And, of course we’re safe! We always make sure that nobody’s around —”

“Not what I meant,” she says, furrowing her eyebrows a little. “You guys do use condoms, don’t you?”

“Ah! We haven’t done _that,_ Bev!”

“Well, I don’t know!” she says, and she’s grinning loosely again. “But, good. You want to make sure that it’s special.”

“Special,” he repeats. “What do you mean?”

“I don’t know, just — I wouldn’t want my first time to be in the back of a car, you know?” she asks, and Eddie frowns thoughtfully before nodding. “I’d want it to be all nice and romantic. In a bed, with nobody else home. Like you see in the movies.”

“Yeah. I know what you mean. It’s difficult, though, with my mom. She rarely lets me stay over places and she’d rather give up cake than let Richie stay overnight. Not that she suspects anything; she’s still suspicious that you’re my girlfriend.”

She winks. “I’m flattered.”

“Yeah, I– I wouldn’t be, sorry. She hates your guts.”

“Bold of you to assume that I don’t consider that a good thing. I hate her guts, too.” 

Eddie releases a small sigh. He’d be the first to admit that he hates his mom, as well, but there’s still that small part of him that aches for her to change. He wants to love her. 

He picks up his phone with his free hand.

**MESSAGES**

**loserzz (21 New Messages)**

**Richie (9 New Messages)**

**Stan (5 New Messages)**

**Mom (4 New Messages) [DELETED]**

  
  


**Richie**

**Richie (14:22):** _im so bored_

**Richie (14:22):** _why does family exist_

**Richie (14:23):** _there is a small girl who keeps fuckin crawlinfbinto my lap_

**Richie (14:34):** _ok i have discovered small girl is my baby cousin_

**Richie (14:36):** _i never want my sister to have another birthday party ever again UGHHHHHHHH BABY IM BORED_

**Richie (14:40):** _omg they have a game of pin the kiss on shawn mendes (//∇//)_

**Richie (14:41):** _i never understood that preteens r so annoying_

**Richie (14:43):** _if we have kids we’re not having girls_

**Richie (14:45):** _mom won’t let me play pin the kiss on shawn mendes('◉⌓◉’)_

**Eddie (14:53):** _hope you’re having fun. bev is painting my nails. stay away from shawn mendes. <3 _

“Do you think I should talk to Richie about his obsession with Shawn Mendes?” he asks.

Beverly snorts. More lilac on his skin. It looks cool. “That is the worst person to have an obsession with.”

“That’s what I keep telling him!”

  
  


**Stan**

**Stan (14:20):** _tell your boyfriend to shut up on the gc_

**Stan (14:23):** _i’m going to slit his throat eddie_

**Stan (14:27):** _never mind it made mike stand up for me ?? angel_

**Stan (14:33):** _mike not richie_

**Stan (14:46):** _ur boyfriend is fucking lucky he’s breathing_

**Eddie (14:53):** _what has he done now._

  
  


**loserzz**

**Stan (14:12):** _anybody want to go to the beach tomorrow?_

**Stan (14:13):** _meant to be 80+°_

**Richie (14:13):** _how do u do the degrees symbol_

**Stan (14:14):** _hold down the 0_

**Stan (14:14):** _do you want to come or not_

**Richie (14:15):** _N°_

**Stan (14:16):** _you are the actual bane of my existence and i am going to feed you rat poison when you sleep_

**Richie (14:16):** _why d°nt y°u g° with mike_

**Stan (14:18):** _what do you mean_

**Stan (14:18):** _mike is fuckin invited dumbass_

**Richie (14:19):** _°w°_

**Mike (14:19):** _I was summoned!_

**Mike (14:19):** _Whats up?_

**Richie (14:20):** _hey vsauce michael_

**Richie (14:20):** _g° t° beach wiv stanny t°m°rruh w°ntcha mikey?_

**Stan (14:21):** _why don’t you want to come asshole_

**Stan (14:21):** _eddie will come_

**Richie (14:22):** _°h! d°uble date!!!!_

**Stan (14:23):** _beep fucking beep you absolute dick_

**Mike (14:25):** _Hey, rich, i think it’s clear you’re making stan uncomfortable._

**Mike (14:26):** _I’ll come to the beach tomorrow, stan :)_

**Stan (14:27):** _thwnk s_

**Richie (14:30):** _sorry didn’t think_

**Richie (14:31):** _sorry stan_

**Stan (14:31):** _don’t worry about it_

**Richie (14:33):** _text me_

**Mike (14:35):** _:)_

**Mike (14:36):** _so beach?_

**Bill (14:38):** _beach?_

**Mike (14:38):** _beach?_

**Bill (14:38):** _beach._

**Mike (14:39):** _beach!_

**Stan (14:42):** _jenkins beach 2morrow @ 11 make a day of it_

**Mike (14:43):** _Sounds good. :)_

**Bill (14:44):** _i’m in._

**Richie (14:46):** _awesome looks like it’s gonna be hot somebody is going to have to rub suntan lotion all over stanley’s wet naked body oh no can’t be me eds will get jealous looks like the job is up to somebody else xxxxxx_

**Stan (14:46):** _i won’t hesitate to murder you_

**Mike (14:46):** _I can do it for you stanley!_

**Stan (14:47):** _/;,’_

**Mike (14:47):** _?_

**Bill (14:47):** _stan broke_

**Richie (14:48):** _stan broke_

**Ben (14:50):** _I can do the beach tomorrow._

**Richie (14:50):** _ben please have some respect stan broke_

**Ben (14:50):** _Stan broke?_

**Bill (14:51):** _stan broke_

**Richie (14:51):** _stan broke_

**Ben (14:52):** _RIP Stan._

  
  


“The guys want to go to the beach tomorrow,” Eddie says. “You up for it?”

She pauses for a second, lips pursed. “I’ll see.”

“It’s been ages since we all went to the beach together!”

She shrugs. “My shorts are in the wash.”

“Can’t you wear a dress? Or a skirt? And we’re all gonna be going in the water, anyway.”

She gives a chuckle. “I won’t be.”

“Oh. Why?” 

“I’m on my period.”

Eddie feels himself go bright red, a reaction that he’s not proud of in the slightest. He’s still not entirely comfortable talking about — _women’s_ _things —_ not sure how to deal with it, how to discuss it normally. 

“Oh,” he says, blinking rapidly. “Uh. Okay. Uh. You should still come.”

Bev snorts, obviously not fooled by his attempt to cover up his awkwardness. “Sorry. I’ll come if my shorts are dry in the morning.”

He smiles at her. “Good! If they’re not, you could probably borrow some of ours, you know.”

She smiles back at him. “Thanks, Eddie.”

  
  


**loserzz**

**Eddie (14:55):** _i can come tomorrow. bev is 50/50._

**Richie** **(14:55):** _stan broke_

**Eddie (14:56):** _why am i dating you._

**Richie (14:56):** _my rugged good looks and because stan broke_

**Bill (14:57):** _stan broke_

**Stan (14:59):** _i’m kms_

*****

This wasn’t a good idea, Eddie reflects seriously, settling his book down open on his lap and extremely appreciative that sunglasses exist. There is no way that this, in _any way at all,_ follows the guidelines that add up to the definition of a good idea. In fact, he might even call it mildly, if not absolutely disastrous. 

His legs are stretched out in front of him on his towel, and he’s pushed himself up from lying down, resting his weight on his elbows and forearms. His neck is going to cramp if he stays in this position for much longer, but he can’t _stop._ If he stops, he’s going to die. Actually. He can _feel_ it. He’s sweating and he knows that it’s not because of the heat (he’s under a well-sized umbrella, obviously) and he is going to _die._

Because Richie ( _the utter fucking bastard)_ is gallivanting around like it’s nothing. Like his bare upper body isn’t on full display and glistening with every slight of his body, sweat mixed with suntan lotion and splashes from where he’d ran headfirst into the ocean as soon as they’d gotten to the bay. Like he hasn’t been working out recently (“ _So I can lift your fat ass, Eds!”)_ and his stomach hasn’t become more toned and his legs more defined. God, his legs. Eddie has a sudden rush of appreciation for Richie — if this is how he feels every single time Eddie wears his shorts, anyway. The trunks that Richie has on are absolutely fucking _criminal._ They’re tiny by all means; hitched so far up his thighs that Eddie can practically see the dusting of the hair on his inner thighs that he’s become so accustomed to over the course of their relationship. They’re so awfully snug on him, too, stretched taut around the rump of his ass and leaving little to the imagination in the front. Granted, this may be because he’s so extremely familiar with it that he practically sees it when his eyes are closed; but he can _swear_ that he can see the outline of it against the harshly disgusting design on the swimming trunks (a giant banana wearing sunglasses on a sun lounger, with long, lanky, hairy legs). So. Colour him distracted.

His mouth grows dryer and dryer as he watches Richie, every inch of his body. He’s currently in the middle of crouching down, shovelling and throwing sand over Stanley’s sleeping body. Eddie would be laughing or telling him to knock it off if he weren’t so distracted at the sight of him. 

He places his hand firmly on top of the book that’s snug in his lap and he awkwardly clears his throat, trying to act casual whilst not drawing too much attention towards himself. He might cream himself if Richie bends over like — _that, right fucking there_ — one more fucking time. Eddie’s not entirely sure that he’s not aware of what he’s doing. It would be just like him to do this on purpose. He’s probably there now, thinking _Ahah! We’ve got him, boys!_ whilst plotting his demise.

“Eddie?” Ben says, placing a hand on Eddie’s shoulder and making him jump. “Sorry, sorry! Do you want to come in the water?”

“Um,” Eddie says, undergoing a dramatic inner turmoil within himself. If he says no, he might seem suspicious and raise some eyebrows. If he says yes, their entire group (and the numerous innocent bystanders and this beach) might see his raging erection. But the freezing coolness of the water would probably calm it down. 

“Come on, Spaghetti, baby!” Richie calls, startling Stan awake before he hurries over. Eddie lets him take his hands and pull him up into a stance, but he’s burning a bright red. 

“I’ll come paddle,” Beverly says. She’s wearing Bill’s shorts and they’re tied cutely around her waist with a yellow belt that has white polka dots, accompanied by a matching yellow bikini top that has both Ben and Bill blushing. “Come on, Eddie.”

“Yeah, Eddie,” Richie says, stroking a finger down his arm and that’s _really_ not helping. Eddie tenses his jaw, facing Richie, his back to the rest of their friends. 

“Richie,” he says blankly, his eyes portraying nothing less than a glare that can’t even be seen; his darned sunglasses cloud his intimidating expression. “I’ll stay and look after our stuff.”

“I’ll do that,” Stan slurs, raising a hand half-heartedly. Eddie hates him.

“I’ll stay with Stan,” Mike announces. Eddie hates him, too.

He takes a deep breath and begins to slowly nod his head, adjusting his position to hold his hands together subtly over his crotch. He turns to Bill, Ben and Beverly, and tells them, “You guys go on ahead. Richie and I will be right there. He needs more sunscreen.”

They seem to accept the excuse even as Richie protests. Eddie nervously watches them walk away and then crouches to grab the sunscreen, eyes stuck closely on Stan and Mike until he’s content that they’re distracted enough in conversation to not care about what he and Richie will be saying.

“I mean it, I don’t need anymore,” he says, holding up his hands in front of him and shaking them as he slowly backs away. 

“Richie!” Eddie whispers. “It’s not about sunscreen!”

Richie frowns in confusion, his eyebrows knitting together beneath his prescription sunglasses as he allows Eddie to walk up to him. At least they’re a ways away from anyone now, mostly secluded. He still has the bottle hiding his crotch, just in case. He reaches out as if to cup Eddie’s face before thinking better of it (still in freaking public, damnit) and placing his hand softly on his shoulder instead. 

“Are you okay?” he asks gently. “You don’t actually have to come in if you don’t want to, you know —”

“Yeah, I know,” he says, a small smile edging up onto his face. “I just —” He looks around warily. Sighs. Then pushes himself up onto his tip-toes so that he can whisper into Richie’s ear the words, “— I have a freaking hard-on.”

Sudden realisation floods Richie’s features and Eddie can imagine how wide his eyes are behind the specs. His cheeks are already red from the heat, but his mouth drops a little and his tongue immediately darts out to lick his lips and he slides a restless hand through his hair. 

“Did staring at Billy get too much for you?” he asks, and his voice has dropped to a husky tone that shouldn’t be as seductive as it actually is. 

“Bill isn’t wearing a ridiculously undersized pair of swimming trunks,” Eddie points out. “Christ, Rich, you – you were bending over and shit, and I — after our, you know, our recent conversations, I’ve been thinking about, um, _that_ more, and I – you can’t just wear these and expect me not to take them off!”

“These are about to get a lot tighter if you keep talking like that.” It sounds like a threat and a promise. Eddie wants to pounce on him. 

He sighs. “I’m not walking down in front of all of these people –” He waves his hand around, “– Not with _this!_ ”

“Well,” he says, and he turns himself around, bending his knees. “Hop on the Tozier Express!”

Eddie rolls his eyes, jumping up onto the small of his back. His erection is snug against Richie’s skin and it’s not a huge help. In fact, it’s probably making it worse. His palms flatten against Richie’s chest and he nuzzles his face into the crook of his neck. He smells like pine and salt water and the distinct chemical-scent of sunscreen. 

“You missed a perfect opportunity to say Tozier the Tank Engine,” Eddie hums into his ear, resisting the urge to lick at him. He feels like a freaking cat. 

“Darn! You’re funnier than I am, Eddie-Bear.”

“You only just realised this? I’ve always been funnier than you. It’s impossible to be less funny than you because you’re so desperately unfunny.” 

“You wound me! I might have to drop you,” he warns, and he wobbles on his feet and makes Eddie hold on to him tighter. He begins to charge down the beach, kicking sand behind him and only just avoiding completely trampling a poor child trying to build a sandcastle. The sandcastle is not so lucky. 

Eddie’s shrieking with laughter as they bounce along to the sea and tells him to slow down even though he doesn’t really want him to. He knows how they must look; there’s not a single person on this beach who’s fooled that the two of them aren’t together. Eddie doesn’t care. He’s never actually felt happier in his entire life.

Richie launches straight into the water and flops both he and Eddie down to breach the surface, creating an immense splash of affection that hits them both as they heave a deep breath. Eddie yells as they emerge to the air once again, now separated, and they both spend a couple of minutes doubled over in laughter. He’s not even sure where Bev, Bill, or Ben are, but he doesn’t mind; they’ll find them in a moment. Eddie’s pretty sure that he’s snorted some ocean water and he’s all too aware of what the fuck is in this gross ass water but he can worry about that later.

“You stupid ass!” he exclaims with delight, wading closer to Richie to hold his hands under the water. “You could’ve killed us!”

“Good thing that I’m ace at mouth-to-mouth, huh?” Richie says, grabbing hold of Eddie’s hips. They share a moment that says _maybe if we weren’t in plain sight_ and Eddie curses the use of both of their sunglasses because he wants to see Richie staring at his lips. But then Richie is sinking, disappearing into the depths below the thin line of blue at Eddie’s nipples and he’s going deeper, deeper, and — 

Eddie grabs a handful of his hair and yanks him upwards again, face red with anger, glaring at his shit-eating grin. 

“ _Really!?”_ he declares, pointing a finger in his face. “In public!?”

“Hey!” he says, holding his hands up in mock surrender. “They were begging to be pulled down!”

“You’re just a pervert.”

“You love it.”

Eddie pouts up at him, thinking _yes, you fucking idiot, I love you,_ but it’s not the right moment, not yet. So when Beverly walks over to them, the water just barely skimming the hem of her rolled up shorts, Eddie’s almost relieved by it. 

“Is this man bothering you?” Beverly asks Eddie, flicking Richie in the forehead. “Sorry, he’s spoken for.”

“He is? Oh, jeez, if you’re so _spoken for_ then you should have _said_ something. Put that pretty mouth to use!” 

Eddie sends a splash over Richie and turns to wrap his arms around Beverly’s waist, dusting her pale skin with small droplets. “I’d like to report a bastard,” he says. 

“Hey!” Bill shouts, he and Ben wading over. “You guys wanna — wanna play volleyball?”

“Can’t,” Richie says. “I hate balls.”

“I’ll play some from over here,” Bev says, and she pats Eddie on the head. “I’ve found a small child.”

“A small child? And here I thought you were my girlfriend to replace Trashmouth.” He kicks away from her, swimming away and dunking himself under the water, his hair roaming around like crazy in front of him and bubbling escaping the corner of his mouth. He can see Ben’s legs approaching them and Richie shuffling his feet weirdly, like he’s on a dance floor. His swimming trunks still look stupid, even when they’re blurred in a blue haze. 

He breathes out heavily as he breaches the surface of the water once again and pushes his sopping hair out of his face, shaking his head like a dog. He can already see Richie’s hair curling at the edges and he knows that his own is going to be doing the same soon. 

“See any candiru down there?” Richie asks.

“Yeah, swam right up into your shorts. It’ll probably die from all your STDs.”

Bill frowns, placing his hands over his crotch. “Wh- What’s that?”

“It’s a fish that swims up into your urethra,” Ben tells him. At Bill’s alarmed expression, he quickly adds, “Don’t worry! They’re only found in places like Brazil and Peru. Definitely _not_ Maine.”

“Then what’s that sneaking up into my shorts?” Richie gasps, and smacks Bill hard on the arm. “Keep your hands to yourself, Billiam! I’m an honest woman!”

Eddie tuts. “An honest woman with eighty-million STDs.”

“Your mom has STDs.”

“Yeah, and I fucked your dad and got him pregnant.” Eddie sticks his tongue out at him before swimming over and climbing up onto his back. He knows that he’s lighter in the water, and Richie doesn’t even need to hold onto him to support him, but he reaches down to stroke his calves anyway. 

Beverly looks between their faces with a smirk filled with adoration for her friends, and turns to Bill and Ben with a chuckle. “Who says romance is dead?” 

“Romance? With this guy? Hah. Don’t make me laugh,” Richie says, and exaggerates a laugh so loud that it makes a nearby boomer almost roll off her inflatable _Minion_ pool float.

“Oh, God, gross. Have you seen him? I don’t think he’s showered in ten million years,” Eddie adds.

“Yuck.”

“Disgusting.”

“Appalling.”

Bill, Ben and Bev grin at each other, all moving to stand in a circle. They begin throwing the ball to one another, apparently abandoning the idea of an actual structured game (Eddie’s _far_ too distracted for that). They share laughs as Eddie falls off of Richie’s back when the latter attempts to jump up and catch the ball, and after thousands more words of bickering is shared, Bill speaks again.

“You know,” he says. “I think it’s n– nice that y- you two are, like, the same, even though – though you two are together. It sh- shows that you g- guys have felt it all along.”

And, huh. Eddie had never thought about it like that. He supposes that it makes sense. Bill has always been more perceptive than the rest of them and Eddie has always admired him for it. Eddie’s admired Bill for many things, always dwelled on his fantastic and understanding nature. Right now, Eddie admires Bill for bringing this to his attention. It makes him want to reflect on it, but there’s no time, because Richie is holding him to his chest now, despite the strangers, and even though Eddie feels disgustingly sentimental, Richie says rudely, “What am I meant to do? Write him a poem?”

*

“Okay.”

It’s a whisper into a room lit only by the moon. His hands are shaking as they slide over sweat-soaked skin, fingernails scraping long red marks onto somewhat burnt skin that’s undergone a week or so or aftersun. Eddie had tried to warn him, to be fair to him — it hadn’t done much good.

(“ _Baby, I don’t burn.”_

_“Come here.”_

_“I don’t need it!”_

_“That totally doesn’t even matter at all! Do you even know what SPF means? Even if you don’t burn, you still get attacked by UV rays, and they give you fucking skin cancer, dickwad, so come here!”_

_“If you can’t catch me, skin cancer can’t either!”_ )

Eddie’s mouth tumbles open and he can feel streams of saliva slipping down the side of his face. His eyes are desperately shut even though he wants nothing more than to pry them open and gaze at the man on top of him. Holding him down. Kissing him once, twice, three times, breathing comfort into his body. His curls topple down to tickle his forehead and the sweat that trickles down from one man’s to the other’s doesn’t bother him at all. 

There’s a pillow propping up his head and supporting his neck and a pillow supporting his back, elevating his hips and his behind. He’s beginning to feel like he might need his inhaler soon, with how fast his heart is beating and how deeply he’s breathing. It feels like a panic attack mixed with a dream. It feels foreign. It feels incredibly right.

One of Richie’s hands is applying pressure to his inner thigh, holding it back. His thumb is smoothing soft circles to the supple skin above his gracilis muscle but the small use of force against the knee that’s threatening to fall closed is kind of a huge turn on. More than that. If he weren’t already soaking wet and leaking precum all over his stomach then the mere act of him exerting some strength would have immediately made him undone. 

His tongue is thrumming into his mouth and Eddie can taste the mint on his breath that he’d most likely gargled and brushed and chewed before Eddie had arrived. It distracts him from the scent of dirty gym clothes that have been half-strewn into the laundry basket that Eddie has finally made him start using. He lets him ravage his neck when he gasps and topples his head backwards, baring his throat like a comfortable dog. 

“Okay,” he whispers again. Richie leaves a trail of saliva down his bruised skin and the pure smile that he gives him makes Eddie feel like he’s glowing from the inside. 

There’s the golden ticket. Richie pushes his middle finger through the tight ring of muscle and lets it sink deep inside him. He’s spent a lot of time staring at those fingers and almost the same amount of time wondering how they would feel buried inside of him. It’s still an odd sensation, but over the past week or two, he’s been doing some more experimentation and one that he’s sure that he’s not going to get tired of. It’s wet and the stretch still hurts a little bit, but he _knows_ that he can take two, and _Christ, he wants two._

Eddie gulps around a threatening moan and nods softly when Richie inquires his thoughts through a shared look. He hums his approval as Richie begins to slide his finger in and out and in again and he’s suddenly writhing, the achingly slow pace making something deep inside of him want to _beg_ for things that he’s only heard in lewd videos; things like _faster_ and _more_ and _harder, harder, harder!_ It’s always somewhat confused him — could somebody _need_ something this badly, he’d wondered? It had sounded fake and looked fake, but now, he thinks, now he gets it. 

So he moans, “ _More,”_ to Richie and the man kisses him softly on the leg before obliging. He’d told him, before they’d done this, before it turned into this heap of love on a bed, that he trusts what Eddie wants. He’ll give him what he wants. He gives him _more_ and begins to thrust his finger faster and faster and when Eddie asks _more_ again, he pauses, kisses him, and slips in a second lubricated finger beside the first. The burn hurts more now and he needs a second, or two, or sixty to actually get used to it and ask for him to keep moving. When he does, it’s more of what he’s wanted. Richie’s fingers extend and curl inside of him and Eddie can tell that he’s done his homework — he’s aiming for the particular spot inside of him and Eddie can’t even mind that he’s not hitting it yet. He feels kind of full. It’s satisfying in more ways than one and it’s good despite Richie missing hitting the spot. 

Richie hums a sweet moan against his thigh and he begins to fuck him on his two fingers, plunging them into him. He’s really going for it, and Eddie can’t help but let his moans spill out of his mouth like a broken waterspout. His toes curl above Richie’s head and he’s torn between letting his head fall backwards to relish in the terrifyingly beautiful ecstasy and lifting his head to watch. When he does catch glimpses, it’s of Richie looking in such utter awe that it makes Eddie ironically embarrassed. Richie’s eyes flicker between the movements of his fingers and how he’s rocking Eddie against them, and the look that is spread across Eddie’s face. He can only imagine how dutifully _gone_ he looks, and dreads to think of how much worse he’ll be when Richie’s dick is finally inside him. It won’t be tonight, they aren’t ready yet, but the mere image of this scenario playing out and ending with Richie drilling into him without mercy has his eyes rolling back.

“Look at you,” Richie is mumbling, pressing butterfly kisses all the way up his thigh, to his hip, and back again. “You’re perfect. You’re literally perfect.”

Eddie grasps at the sheets beneath him, desperate for something to connect him to reality because he’s afraid that he might lose himself. He says, with a broken tone, “ _Richie,”_ and leaves it up to interpretation.

Richie takes it _very_ well. He readjusts himself, his head moving from kissing his thigh down to his groin. As Eddie’s just barely registering what’s happening, Richie takes his cock into his mouth and sucks him down to the dusted hair at the base. His fingers twist at the very same time, and finally, _finally,_ he’s hitting his prostate, rubbing against the bundle of nerves, and Eddie’s gasping as if he’s just found God, he’s throwing his head back like it’ll make it easier to not cum right on the spot. He slams his hand down to the bed and scrunches the sheets into his fist, but his fingernails are digging into his palm still and he’s not sure that he isn’t drawing blood. 

“God!” he screams, because if Heaven exists then it’s right here with the two of them. He’s also never been happier that the rest of the Tozier family have packed up to go on vacation — they left about two weeks ago, just before the Loser’s beach day. He’d initially felt bad for Richie being left behind until he’d realised that he’d probably rather be with his friends than his family. 

Eddie wraps the leg that isn’t held down around Richie’s shoulder, following his natural instincts instead of overthinking every one of his actions. He can’t think right now — his mind is clouded with lust and the pleasure that he’s experiencing and it’s _so so so so so mu—u—uch!_

He feels his hips twitch involuntarily and groans as the fingers press deeper and Richie’s tongue massages the underside of the head of his dick when he slips his lips upwards. He’s smiling around him, knowing what he’s doing to Eddie and relishing in it. It’s so attractively like Richie. 

“ _There,”_ he whines, nodding fervently despite Richie’s eyes not being open. “Oh, God — Oh, God, Richie — Right fucking there, please, _please.”_

He withdraws his fingers slightly and Eddie wants to scream at him, but then he’s slamming his fingers back inside – and out – and in again — and Eddie’s sure that he sounds like every grandiose and hyperbolic porno that has ever existed. He’s arching his back and he can hear his spine clicking and the obscene hums and licks of Richie’s mouth closing and suckling on him, and the wet noise of his hand slapping against his behind as he thrusts in his fingers. 

A sudden pulse of his dick and a throb inside of him is all the warning he gets before he’s overwhelmed by the riddled senses around him, and he throws his everything into Richie as Richie throws everything into him, and he gasps as he cums into Richie’s mouth. It’s one of the most intense orgasms that he’s ever had — perhaps, he thinks, it’s because of the pressure on his prostate, before Richie presses against it again and he concludes that it’s _definitely_ because of his prostate.

“Wow.”

Eddie heaves his breaths, staring up at his ceiling, and he hums, “Wow, indeed.”

Richie lets his leg down, rubbing his thigh softly and pressing soft kisses to his stomach. He feels a pang in the leg now, muscles aching from being stretched out for so long. He supposes that it won’t be the only thing aching slightly after this, and he shuts his eyes awkwardly and winces as he feels Richie remove his fingers. 

“That was so freaking hot,” he says, wiping his hands on the sheets and making Eddie faux-gag. 

Eddie huffs a laugh and breathes, “You’re fucking telling me. I feel like – like a noodle. I can’t move.”

Richie giggles for a second, and then says, “You mean you feel like… Spaghetti?”

“Oh, shut the fuck up,” he says to him, grabbing the pillow from under his head and throwing it at his head. “You wanna start making dinner?”

“Hell yeah,” he says, throwing the pillow away to reveal a large grin spreading across his face. “I’ll put the stove on, you have a shower.”

“You’re showering too.”

“Ugh.”

“Richie.”

“ _Ugh.”_

“ _Richie!”_

*

“Is this all, sir?” the woman behind the register is saying, smugness evident through her voice. She’s looking down on him as he nods, trying to judge his age. She’s not the first. “That’ll be eight dollars.”

Eddie slides a ten-dollar bill across the counter and quickly shoves the package into his backpack, bobbing up and down on his feet nervously as he waits for his change. She’s taking her time. 

“You even old enough for that?” she asks, narrowing her beady eyes and twirling a strand of her hair around her finger. 

“Can I have my two dollars, please?” he says in return, holding out an expectant hand. “It’s none of your business how old I am. I’m not buying cigarettes or alcohol.”

“Jeez. Just asking.” She drops two dollar bills into his hand and rolls her eyes rudely. “Go and have fun, kid.”

He resists the urge to flip her off as he makes his way out of the store, red from his collarbones to the tips of his ears. He zips his bag up after dropping in the bills and throws it over his shoulder, ignoring the inquisitive looks of two men nearby, who are clearly wondering why he looks like he just walked straight out of a whorehouse.

**MESSAGES**

**loserzz**

**Eddie (16:39):** _can someone pick me up from the store please._

**Eddie (16:39):** _leg hurts can’t walk._

**Bev (16:42):** _what happened to your leg?!_

**Eddie (16:43):** _richie._

**Bev (16:43):** _O-O_

**Bev (16:43):** _i’ll get my car now! omw ( ◠‿◠ )_

**Eddie (16:44):** _thank you bev. :)_

Eddie places his phone back into his pocket and kicks his legs back and forth, his butt firmly placed upon the brick wall surrounding the parking lot. He shuts his eyes, ignoring the growing desperation to reach into his bag and inspect his new purchase. He doesn’t know why he wants to, really — he knows what’s on there, he knows he’s not going to find out anything that he hasn’t already memorised from weeks worth of incessant googling. 

His fingers now to take out his phone and distract himself with it. There’s no guarantee that any of the people inside didn’t have their eye on him as a target, though; short, skinny, and limping around, he’d be the perfect victim of an impromptu mugging. So he drums his fingers against his thigh instead so as to not flaunt the fact that he has a phone with him. That’s Derry, for you.

His leg _does_ ache, though. Since the first time that Richie used his fingers to caress Eddie open and pleasure him for the first time in this new style, they’ve been doing it a lot. Like, a lot, a lot. Eddie’s not sure if he’s walked straight for two weeks because of it. Not that he minds, because he actually likes it when Richie holds down his legs for better access, but it’s just the aftermath that leaves him grumbling. He’s been thinking of looking up some yoga classes to better prepare his body. Richie would probably come along with him. 

But despite the avid contentedness that Eddie has with the semi-recent development in their relationship, he can’t help but find himself wanting more. He knows that Richie tells him that he loves it when Eddie lets him finger him, but he can’t help the nagging thought that stays with him that screams that he’s not doing enough in return. Eddie aches to make his boyfriend feel as good as he does — which is why he has two plans.

Plan A: ask Richie if he wants Eddie’s fingers inside of him in the same way that he’s been blessing Eddie for the past two weeks. 

Plan B: ask Richie to have sex with him. Properly. Full-blown, all out sexual intercourse. Which is why Eddie was at the store in the first place. 

It’s their two month anniversary tomorrow (Eddie can see Stanley rolling his eyes in his mind) and Eddie feels… ready. He feels different. He feels a way that he’s never felt before, in which whilst he can imagine Richie making love to him so thoroughly and deeply, he can now actually see himself approaching it, asking for it, and it no longer sends a sharp spike of anxiety down his spine. Only anticipation. 

His mouth waters slightly as he pictures it and he clutches his bag closer to him. This will be a _big_ milestone. He knows that it’ll be the defining moment in their relationship and though he knows it isn’t going to technically change anything but their sex life, Eddie can’t help but feel like this may be their final step to take in order to become the closest that they can to each other. 

A car honks and Eddie startles, grabbing his bag to get ready to leave to get into the car and say hello to Beverly. When he looks up, he’s rather disappointed.

“Kaspbrak,” a harsh voice calls to him, one that definitely does not belong to Beverly. “What are you doing out here all alone?”

Eddie tenses, but doesn’t let his guard down. He stares at Patrick directly in the eye, and says, “Waiting for your probation officer to pick me up. We’re going for dinner to discuss how much longer you should be picking up trash for.”

“Picking up trash?” he says, looking Eddie up and down. “Is that what this’ll be if you get in?”

“I’m not getting in.”

“If you did.”

“Christ. No wonder people think you’re gay.”

“I’m not,” he spits. Too defensive. “You know who I’m banging, Kaspbrak?”

“Audra Phillips.”

“Yeah. Bet you’re jealous.”

Eddie shrugs. “I've literally never spoken to her in my life. So, not really.”

“You’ve seen her, though.” The smirk running across his face is sickening. He leans across the seat and opens the passenger side door. “Come. Get in. I’ll give you a ride and tell you all about her.”

“I’m good.”

“Get in,” he repeats.

“I said, I’m good.”

Patrick’s eye twitches, and he quickly opens the driver side door and pushes himself out (Eddie notes his endless stupidity — he hadn’t even been wearing a seatbelt). “You know,” he says, walking over to him. “You talk a lot of smack for someone who’s only five foot.”

He gulps, but holds his ground. “I’m five foot four.”

“I’m six foot four.”

Eddie’s brow narrows. “Congratulations? Do you want a prize?”

“Yeah. Let me take you for a ride.” 

“I already have a ride.”

“My probation officer? You’re funny, Wheezy.”

“No. My friend. I don’t think you could get me to where I need to go anyway, it’s too far away, and you’ll be too late for your curfew.”

Patrick takes another step towards him and Eddie, for all his words, flinches. He snarls down at him. “What’s in the bag?”

“Nothing.”

Patrick’s eyebrow raises in disbelief. “Then why you holding onto it so tightly?”

Before he can answer him, his backpack is ripped from his grip, and Patrick holds it up like a medal. 

“Give that back,” Eddie demands. A couple of middle-aged women walk by them without a glance, much less a word. 

“Why don’t you get in? Then we’ll talk. You can have your bag back.”

“Go and get fucked in prison, asshole.”

Patrick’s grin slips off of his face and he throws the bag down to the ground, too far for Eddie to leap up and get before Patrick would catch him. Eddie grinds his teeth, fists clenched at either side of his hips. He wouldn’t be able to run even if Patrick didn’t pursue him — his leg is fucked and even normally, he’d be no match for a car. 

Patrick bends down, leaning close to his face, too close, and he pinches Eddie’s cheek in a way that sickly reminds him of his mother. His violent gaze flickers from one of Eddie’s eyes to the other and his mouth drops to speak, and Eddie can smell cigarettes on his breath.

“That bruise you had healed up real nice, didn’t it?” he whispers. “I could call Henry here, right now. I’m sure he’d _love_ to give you a replacement.”

“I think you two need to have a serious look at your freaking sexualities,” he tells him, reaching up and grabbing at the other man’s wrist. 

“You little c—”

“Hey!” Eddie hears, along with the sweet rumble of an approaching engine. “Get away from my friend, jailbird!”

Eddie’s never been more happy to see Bev in his life. 

She pulls up behind Patrick’s car and slams the door as she gets out. Her appearance doesn’t exactly scream intimidating, with cute denim overalls over a yellow shirt and a white headband in her hair, but the way she’s stomping over to them makes even Patrick take a couple of steps back. 

“Beaverly,” he says, dirty eyes scanning her up and down. “Nice legs.”

“You’re lucky I don’t cut yours off,” she says with a sting. “Eddie, are you okay?”

He nods, pushing himself off of the wall and hobbling over to pick up his bag. “I’m fine,” he tells her, his voice giving him away. “Thanks.”

“What are you hurrying away for?” Patrick asks. “You two going to fuck?”

“Absolutely,” Beverly deadpans. “You’re not invited, by the way. Eddie, come on.”

Eddie hurries towards the car and flips Patrick off before he lets himself inside. Patrick makes a _wuh-pshhh_ noise whilst mimicking cracking a whip and Beverly takes a few steps closer to him, snapping out some harsh words that Eddie can’t quite hear. Patrick runs a hand through his hair, a sick smirk directed at Bev, and when he makes a comment back at her, she doesn’t hold herself back. She draws back her hand and lands a hard slap across his smug face, shutting him up in an instant. She marches back to the car and joins Eddie in flipping the bastard off before she plugs in her seatbelt.

“Go fuck yourself!” she yells out of the window, and puts her foot down whilst Patrick is still holding his cheek. 

Eddie stares at her in awe as she drives, her hair waving around her furious face in the wind. She’s gripping the steering wheel so hard that her knuckles have turned white. 

“That,” Eddie says, “Was the coolest fucking thing I’ve ever seen.”

Beverly breathes in sharply before huffing out a chuckle that progresses into a burst of laughter. One of her hands flies to her mouth to cover it, and she shakes her head. “I can't believe I just did that!”

“What did he say to you?” 

“I don’t want to repeat it. But God, he fucking deserved that slap. Oh my God. I just slapped Patrick Hockstetter.”

“How’s your hand?” he asks. “Greasy?”

“Actually, yeah. You don’t happen to have any hand sanitizer?”

Eddie rolls his eyes, picking up his bag, and says, “Who, me? I never carry that stuff with me.” 

He retrieves the hand sanitizer out from inside the main compartment of his backpack and takes the girl’s hand away from her mouth to squirt some into her palm. He rubs it into her skin using both of his hands and then she gives him her other hand to do it again, keeping one hand on the wheel at all times. 

“Audra can do so much better than him,” Beverly comments. “She’s like, a ten. He’s a minus four.”

“He’s worse than a minus four.” Eddie shudders. “Can you imagine having sex with that?”

“Ew! Don’t even joke. That’s so nasty.” She laughs, and when she gets to a stop sign, pauses to rub her hands together again. Then she presses them to her face. “If my dad finds out that I slapped a guy, I’m screwed.”

“It’s Patrick. He’ll be too proud to tell anyone that he got back-handed by a girl. Don’t worry.” 

“I hope so,” she says, looks over to Eddie, and pauses. Her mouth hangs open, a little in shock, and Eddie stares back at her with alarm.

“What is it?” he asks, panic ripe in his voice. “Is there something on me? Is there something on me!”

“No, no! There’s nothing on you!” she says quickly, and she’s still staring, and her mouth his still parted, and she looks like she’s in the middle of having a small epiphany. “I’m going to pull over.”

Brows furrowed, he wipes his sweaty palms on his legs and asks, “Is everything okay?”

She nods, driving through the intersection and pulling over onto the pavement behind a couple of empty cars. She takes a deep breath, before turning to Eddie and looking into his eyes, and she asks, “Are you sure you’re ready?”

“Ready?” he queries. “What do you mean?”

She leans forward, and for an intensely worrying second, Eddie is scared that she’s going to kiss him. She doesn’t. Thank God, she doesn’t. But she does lean forwards and reach into his bag, which is still open because Eddie is a fucking dumbass. A dumbass who doesn’t know how to zip up his fucking bag when there’s something to hide inside of it. She retrieves the colourful box of condoms and holds them up on display as if they’re not in a suburban neighbourhood, one eyebrow raised. 

Eddie gulps. “Ah.”

“Ah,” she repeats softly. “Eddie, are you sure?”

He looks around nervously, reaching up and taking the box before anybody walking around them catches sight of it. He shoves it back inside his bag and takes one deep breath.

“I’m sure,” he tells her. 

“Are you? Because I know you might want to, but I just want to make sure that you’re actually _ready._ Like, emotionally. I’m — I’m not trying to interfere, I swear, and I’m sorry if it seems like that, but as your friend, I feel like I should ask.” 

Eddie quirks a smile. “Thank you. Really. But I — I really am. I don’t know how to explain how ready I am. I’m a little anxious, sure, but I think that’s a given. I really want to do this, Bev. We’ve spoken about it, me and Richie, and we’re both comfortable. We’ve been — working up to it, so to say, and so I really think it’s time. You know, in a couple of days, we’re going to have been together for two months! And I know it doesn’t really seem like that long, but after knowing each other and being just friends for years, it… kind of feels like we’ve been together for that long, too. And I – I know that it’s stupid because we’re freaking teenagers and we’re probably overreacting, but I think I — I really like him, okay? And I want to do this! His family are away over our anniversary, or whatever you want to call it, and I think it’s just… It’s the right time.”

Eddie watches Beverly examine him, eyes scanning his face for any sign of discomfort or the like. She holds out her hand, pinky finger sticking out. 

“Pinky promise?” she says quietly.

“Pinky promise!” Eddie exclaims, hooking his own pinky around hers, and he sees his grin reflected in her face. 

“Gosh,” she says, moving to face forwards once again. “I can’t believe that of all people, _you_ and _Richie_ are going to be the first to lose their virginities.”

“Hey! Why is that so surprising?” He laughs, crossing his legs. “Who else would it be?”

“I don’t know!” she says, smiling into the rear-view mirror as she reverses out onto the road. “Maybe Mike? I feel like he’s really suave. You’d be surprised at how many girls I’ve heard have had crushes on him.” 

“Mike?” Eddie says, frowning.

“Yeah! I wonder why he’s never asked any of them out.”

Eddie distantly thinks of Stan, but keeps his mouth shut. 

*

They’ve been dating for two months today.

Eddie has been in and out of the shower all day. His hair has never been more squeaky and his skin feels softer than a baby’s bottom. Every time he’d left, he’d felt like he’d forgotten something, had to do more, had to go further. His heart had been pounding against his chest nonstop.

Now, he’s sat upright on his bed, wearing nothing but a towel, clean as a whistle in every place that he could reach. His legs are swinging back and forth as he goes through his mental checklist of items he’s deemed necessary for the night. 

_Cheese puffs: Check._

_Toothbrush: Check._

_Toothpaste: Check._

_Mouthwash: Check._

_Laptop: Check._

_Chargers: Check._

_Three pairs of spare underwear: Check._

_Antibiotics: Check._

_Bandaids: Check._

_Wallet (Cash and ID): Check._

_Deodorant: Check._

_Lip balm: Check._

_Hoodie: Check._

_Three shirts: Check._

_Jeans: Check._

_Shorts: Check._

_Hairbrush: Check._

_Shaving kit: Check._

_Acne cream: Check._

_Speaker: Check._

_Condoms: Check._

_Douche (x2?): Check. (SECURELY HIDDEN!)_

_Lube: ????????????_

“Fuck!” 

And twenty minutes later, he’s shoving the bottle of lube into his bag as he sits on top of his bed, now flipped-over and messy, drawers open and clothes askew on the floor of his closet. It’s not as if Richie won’t be bringing his own, but it’s on the off chance. Just in case. He doesn’t want to leave it to chance that they end up not doing anything for this weekend. 

_God._ An entire weekend. Eddie’s practically buzzing at the idea of being alone with him for this long and his heart is _thump thump thumping_ against his chest with anticipation. He checks his phone. _17:22._ Richie will be picking him up in forty minutes or so. He has to get dressed. 

He has _no idea_ what to wear. 

He has no idea where they’re going. Again. Richie seems to have a thing for the element of surprise. Eddie doesn’t mind it — it’s actually kind of thrilling — but it _does_ tend to mess him up when it comes to dates. He has no idea where they’re going, and so he has no idea what kind of clothes to wear, because he doesn’t want to be underdressed and he _definitely_ doesn’t want to be overdressed. Richie’s given him no sort of indication, _again,_ and so now he’s standing in front of his strewed wardrobe with all sorts of possibilities running through his head and a big decision to make.

He picks up a pair of black jeans. Jeans. Jeans are safe, he thinks. A good mix between formal and casual. And they’re black, too. So they could pass for formal, if he needed. They’re not too ripped. Only slightly, so he seems cool. He looks cool. Richie thinks they’re a little dorky, but Eddie thinks they look cool. Oh God, he’s freaking out about jeans. 

Shirt? What kind of freaking shirt is he going to wear? Is a button-up going to be okay? He and Richie both wore button-ups on their first anniversary ( _Gosh, he feels weird saying that ever since Stan pointed out that it’s technically wrong)_ and that seemed to be a good pointer, even though they’d only gone for a picnic. Now, Eddie thinks, if button-ups are just for picnics and a romp in the back of a car, what the hell is he supposed to wear if they’re going somewhere fancy? 

He knows, in reality, they probably won’t be going anywhere fancy, because fuck Derry and the homophobia embedded everywhere from parks to restaurants, and because they’re both on the wrong side of sixteen to not have jobs, but what if they _do?_

He settles on a baby-blue button-up that has a small smiling face on the breast pocket, and deems that both casual and smart enough to be acceptable. Coupled with his black jeans, he’s rather happy with his appearance. He’s let his hair air-dry, so the strands are curling at the ends, like Eddie knows Richie likes. He tucks in his shirt before thinking better of it and untucking it. Then he does it again. And again, just to make sure. He decides on untucked in the end. 

**MESSAGES**

**loserzz (33 New Messages)**

**Richie (10 New Messages)**

**Bev (1 New Message)**

His phone glares _17:55_ and he knows that Richie’s never been early in his life, but he has an overwhelming urge to run downstairs and check to see if he’s outside already. So he makes sure that nothing is poking out of his bulging bag and throws it over his shoulder, running downstairs. He peeks into the lounge and sighs when he sees his mother asleep. At least he won’t have to deal with her now, he figures, but she’ll be in a panic when she wakes up to find him gone. So he grabs a small piece of paper and writes her a note explaining that he’ll be gone for a few days. He also writes that if she tries to bring him back, he’ll just run away again. Try him.

He hurries outside and locks the door behind him, hurrying down the porch to wait at the pavement. As predicted, Richie is not yet there, but — checking his phone — he still has another minute before he’s officially late:

**Richie**

**Richie (17:44):** _hope u r PACKED_

**Richie (17:44):** _hahahahahahahah ofc u will be_

**Richie (17:46):** _ok i’m about 2 leave_

**Richie (17:46):** _ur ass better be ready_

**Richie (17:48):** _i don’t mean like that_

**Richie (17:48):** _but ( ͡° ͜ʖ ͡°)_

**Richie (17:50):** _OK im actually leaving now_

**Richie (17:51):** _wont be late i swear x_

**Richie (17:51):** _but dont hate me if i am ):_

**Richie (17:52):** _RUSH HOUR!!!!!!!!!!!!_

**Eddie (18:00):** _late._

Eddie smiles down at his phone before peering up and down the street once more. Still no car. He bobs up and down on his feet and tries not to shiver. 

**Bev**

**Bev (17:48):** _BE SAFE AND HAVE FUN XXXXXXXX_

**Eddie (18:00):** _i will thank you bev :)._

  
  


**loserzz**

**Stan (17:36):** _everybody. pray for eddie. having to spend like fifty hours. FIFTY HOURS. straight. with trashmouth tozier._

**Stan (17:36):** _amen_

**Bill (17:37):** _amen_

**Ben (17:38):** _Amen_

**Bev (17:40):** _amen!!!!!_

**Mike (17:40): (๑･̑◡･̑๑)** _amen_

**Richie (17:41):** _WOWOWOWOW_

**Richie (17:41):** _if we crash and die on the way there i want it to be known that it’s stan’s fault for clouding my mind with self doubt ):_

**Stan (17:41):** _boo you whore_

**Richie (17:42):** _did you just fucking mean girls me_

**Richie (17:42):** _can jews even say amen .._

**Stan (17:43):** _one day i’ll kill you_

**Bev (17:44):** _rich ur so offensive_

**Richie (17:44):** _theyre tasteful jokes i swear_

**Richie (17:44):** _i’m circumcised so i have a pass_

**Stan (17:44):** _we know you are._

**Ben (17:45):** _That image is still ingrained in my mind…_

**Mike (17:47:)** _yeahhhhhhhhhhhhhh_

**Richie (17:47):** _dont get too excited mikey ;)_

**Mike (17:47):** _i’ll leave that for Eddie!_

**Bill (17:48):** _richie tozier is cancelled_

**Richie (17:48):** _guys when i become rich and famous don’t expose me pls_

**Bill (17:48):** _you are cancelled._

**Stan (17:49):** _i kinda laughed /;_

**Richie (17:50):** _im in trouble_

**Richie (17:50):** _i take it all back_

**Stan (17:51):** _if i say i forgive u will u just go and pick ur boyfriend up_

**Richie (17:51):** _IM LEAVING!!!!!!_

**Ben (17:52):** _Have fun! :D_

**Mike (17:52):** _^^^^^ !!!! hope you guys have a great time!_

**Bill (17:53):** _dont catch anything :)_

**Bev (17:53):** _be safe!_

**Stan (17:54):** _please catch everything and die x_

**Eddie (18:04):** _thanks guys we will have fun :)._

  
  


Eddie’s laughing down at his phone when he hears the rumble of a car engine approaching, and finally, _there's_ the sense of gorgeous relief that floods through him and warms him from the inside out. He waves at Richie as he pulls up outside of the house and he can see Richie’s infectious grin even through the hazy, unclean window. 

He opens the door to the backseat and places his bag down before jumping into the passenger side. He lets a smile take over his face as he feels Richie press a quick kiss to his mouth and he can’t hide his excitement. He’s basically squealing.

“Can you tell me where we’re going now?” he asks. “I’m dying.”

“Come on, let me have _some_ surprises! I wanna see the look on your pretty face,” Richie tells him, revving up the car. “You look great, by the way.”

“Shut up. _You_ look great,” Eddie argues as his face turns red. And he _does._ He’s wearing jeans not unlike Eddie’s own, and a black button-up with red accents that’s flowing loose and open over a white shirt. His hair is messier than usual and it gives Eddie the illusion that his hands have just finished threading through it. His face is flushed from the cold and the kiss, he’s assuming, and his glasses are wonky and his lips are kind of chapped. _Great_ is an understatement.

“Put on our playlist,” Richie says quietly as they roll down the street into the setting sun. 

“Have you updated it?” Eddie asks.

“No, but there’s about two hours worth of music on there. It should be enough to get us to where we’re going. So, slap that bad boy on shuffle!”

Eddie complies, and _Accidentally in Love_ from the _Shrek_ soundtrack begins to blast through the car, but he sits back with an unsure expression plastered on his face. He asks, “Two hours? Where the fuck are we going?”

“ _Come on, come on! Turn a little faster!”_

“Rich.”

“ _Come on, come on! The world will follow after!”_

“Are you kidnapping me?”

Richie’s eyes flicker over to him for a second, and a dastardly attractive smile flies over his face. “ _Come on, come on! Cause everybody’s after lo–o–ove!”_

*

Eddie has to pee in some bushes because he refuses to use a public bathroom and contract every disease known to mankind and beyond, but apart from that, the car ride goes rather smoothly. They get through pretty much all of the songs, apart from one or two that Eddie decides to skip (he’s just not that big a fan of Lana Del Rey — Richie wants to revoke his gay card) despite Richie’s protests. The others make the journey as fun as it can be, and they carpool karaoke it out harder than James Corden. Eddie munches on the cheese puffs that he’d brought (thank you, hindsight) and feeds them to Richie as he drives, trying not to get distracted every time his tongue brushes over his fingers. 

When Richie’s car finally starts to slow down and Eddie allows the salty sea breeze sink in, he’s pretty sure that he’s half-worked out where they are. He knows that they’re on the coast, at least, and when he sees a lovely sign reading _The Camden Harbour Inn,_ followed by a simply beautiful mansion of a building, his first thought is _oh, Camden!_ followed by _how the FUCK can he afford this?_

They park the car and Richie stops Eddie from getting out of the car himself, instead walking around and opening the door for him like a gentleman. Eddie’s flustered by it until Richie grabs his ass as he’s getting out and he thinks, _theeeeere we go._

They grab their stuff out of the back and make their way inside, through the grandiose threshold and into the even more impressive lobby. Richie checks them in and the receptionist gives Eddie a quick wink and tells him, “You’ve got yourself a keeper!”

“He has his moments, I guess,” Eddie replies, and Richie reaches over to squeeze his hand before taking the room key from the receptionist. 

It feels odd to hold Richie’s hand as they walk there, because he’s so used to having to hide what they are that this is just foreign. But Richie smiles at him and kisses him as they stand outside of the door labelled _6_ and it feels almost natural — it feels like the opposite of shitty Derry. 

The bedsheets are white with silky red accents and the walls are matching — windows showing the dark exterior are framed by curtains echoing the sky. Everything from the dark wood end tables to the shiny elevated television screams _perfect._ And again, Eddie wonders _how the FUCK (!) can he afford this?_

He approaches the windows and takes a moment of reflection. He can see the beautiful curves of the bay where it seeps into the landscape and the way the distant waves carry the light of the moon on their backs, tiny ripples disappearing against the many multicoloured boats that lay waiting for their next adventure. 

“I figured I should step up from a picnic,” Richie says, and Eddie can hear the brief anxiety that shoots through his tone. 

He turns to him, mouth ajar. “Step up? Rich — This is a freaking escalator! This is amazing!”

He rubs the back of his neck, one side of his mouth teetering upwards. “You like it?”

“Do I _like_ it?” Eddie breathes. He walks towards him until he’s close enough to drape his arms around his neck. “I _love_ it. I just can’t help but feel like we may be here illegally.”

“I know! It’s way out of my pay grade. The guys may have helped out with the money, but I promised to pay them back in free rides and a lack of dick jokes.” He pushes up his glasses with one finger, his other hand coming down to rest on Eddie’s hip. “But you don’t need to worry about that.”

“No? What if I wanted to treat _you_ for our two-month, huh?”

“You’ll have to wait for three. And then four. Then five. If you’re lucky, I may let you for our six months. But you’re gonna have to fight me.”

He rolls his eyes. “You may be ugly and old, but you’re not my sugar-daddy, Richie.”

“I’m not? Then what the hell are we doing here?” He lets out a long sigh. “Well, grab your stuff. This grandpa has to get home in time so my live-in hospice worker doesn’t realise that me and my full diaper have gone missing.”

“You’re disgusting.”

“I know.”

Eddie pushes himself to his tip-toes and can’t help but smile into the kiss that he presses upon Richie’s lips. It’s still for a moment and they’re simply feeling each other without motion, Eddie’s grin expressing everything that he can’t say, and then he loses his balance and falls out of it sooner than he would have liked.

Richie’s thumb draws circles on his skin. “Are you hungry?” he asks. “The restaurant will still be open.”

“Still?” he asks. “It’s almost nine.”

“Hey, this place is great! Don’t underestimate! I actually chose it, uh, specifically. It has the highest hygiene rating that I could find, and it’s actually owned by two gay guys, so…” He shrugs sheepishly. “ _And_ it has like, couple massages and shit! How cool is that!?”

“You’re amazing,” Eddie says, awestruck, and he pushes Richie backwards so he’s falling onto the bed. “Stay — Stay there.”

“I’m here,” Richie whispers, and he’s staring up at Eddie with almost literal stars in his eyes. “Holy shit, I’m not moving.”

Eddie nods curtly, picking his bag up and throwing it down onto the bed next to him. He unzips it, rummaging about for a second, and he pulls out two sticks of gum. He pops one into his mouth and holds the other out for Richie to take. 

“Here,” he says, and Richie takes it, but his raised eyebrow portrays his _ugh, really_ attitude. “Come on. We’ve both been eating cheese puffs.”

“You didn’t mind the taste when you were eating them,” he retorts with a pout. He sticks it in his mouth anyway, and begins chewing whilst staring Eddie straight in the eye, and Richie’s arms extend to pull him close, nestling Eddie to stand between his thighs.

“Hey,” Eddie says, hand rising to cup the side of his face. “Your skin looks better.”

“It’s you,” Richie replies automatically. “It’s your glow. It’s like the sun. It’s beautiful, and gorgeous, and then, when you least expect it — _Aaaah!_ My _eyes! My eyes!_ They’re fucking _burning!”_ He slams his palms over his glasses and shakes his head vigorously, sending Eddie into a fit of giggles.

“Shhh!” he stresses, hand slipping to cover Richie’s mouth. “Someone’s gonna think you’re serious!”

He replies by pushing his chewed up gum against Eddie’s fingers, and Eddie snatches his hand away, gagging. Richie snorts, but his smile is enchanting in an oddly annoying way, and he lets himself be pulled in for a long, close-mouthed kiss. Goosebumps slither up his arms as he circles them over Richie’s shoulders, and Eddie loves this, because he’s got the advantage. Richie sitting down comes to a comfortable height for Eddie to kiss, with _him_ being the one to lean down instead of it being the other way around. 

When Richie grabs at his ass and separates their lips from one another, Eddie simply finds it in himself to collapse on top of him, and Richie grins whilst he allows himself to topple backwards with him. They land in a heap on the bed, and Eddie presses several kisses to the corner of his mouth stretching to his cheek, then down to his jawline. 

“Thank you,” he whispers, and drops his weight on him completely.

“That’s alright, honey. But, Jesus Christ, I think you’re — I think you’re crushing me. Have you been eating ten packets of those cheese puffs a day? Or have you been secretly working out? Packing on that muscle? _Pwoar_! I’m dying!”

“Too bad,” Eddie grumbles. He knows that Richie’s kidding; he’s heard from him about ten thousand times that he’s a hundred pounds soaking wet. Whilst Richie’s a pretty lanky guy, he’s not entirely weak. He’s thrown Eddie over his shoulder enough times to know that. “You’re gonna have to die.”

“Ouch! Thee did hurt me! Mine own partn'r wanteth me to kicketh the bucket!”

“Stop talking in Shakespeare.”

“Thee wanteth me to cease? Then maketh me!”

Eddie pushes himself up and flops back down. “Thou art a boil,” he says. “A plague sore.”

“Aha! Well, I do counter — _Come, gentle night; come, loving,_ something _night;_

_Give me my Spaghetti; and, when I shall die,_

_Take him and cut him out in little stars,_

_And he will make the face of heaven so fine_

_That all the world_ something, something, something,

 _And pay no worship to the_ something _sun._ ” 

A hand flies up to Eddie’s mouth and he doesn’t even try to hide his laugh. “Oh my god, you freak! Why do you know that? Who just knows that?!”

Richie grins, bucking his hips upwards and wrapping his arms around Eddie’s back, pulling him down into a bear hug, and he hums into the side of his neck, “A-plus in English Literature, baby.”

“Mm,” Eddie mumbles, letting his eyes flutter shut, nuzzling as close as he can to Richie. “You’re so smart.”

Richie goes a little quiet then, but his grip on Eddie tightens considerably and he feels a hesitant, slow set of lips settle against his skin. Eddie turns a little, and when he sees a beet-red face straining not to smile, eyes shut tightly underneath his glasses, he can’t help but bite down on his lip. 

“You _are,”_ Eddie tells him. “You’re like, the smartest stupid person that I know. You get straight A’s in all of your classes, and then you’ll walk into a freaking pole and scream like a banshee, and then _apologise_ to the freaking pole because ‘ _it was just vibing.’_ Like — You can recite Shakespeare off by heart but you didn’t know that Transylvania is a real place. Or, you’ll be top in your calculus class, and then ask us if there are strippers in strip malls. God. You’re so fucking dumb but you’re _so fucking smart,_ and I — it’s _fantastic.”_

Impossibly, Richie has grown even more red, right up to the tips of his ears and down the flush of his neck. His mouth is scrunched up and his eyes are watering a little bit, and he mumbles, “It’s the glasses. They make me look like a genius.”

Eddie squeezes his face, tells him, “You are a genius. My dumbass–genius,” and kisses him – properly, this time, deeply; palms on his hot cheeks and the tip of his nose imprinting upon his glasses. Richie squeaks a little but his fingernails tickle the head beneath his hair and he’s wrapping his legs loosely around Eddie’s waist. 

*

It’s six in the morning and sunlight is streaming through the window, shining beautifully and _rudely_ right upon Eddie’s face, glaring into his eyes and disturbing him from his dream. He’d been sitting alone in a jungle and then a snake had leapt for him, only for his effort to be stopped by a gorgeous panther grabbing it with it his enormous fangs and ripping it apart. 

He shifts and groans and then proceeds to let an enormous smile slip its way onto his face when he remembers where he is and who he’s with. Initial anxieties that always arise about his mother when he wakes up are immediately squashed to the ground when he feels Richie’s fingers interlocked with his own and feels a leg strewn over his thighs. 

They both still have their clothes on and Eddie feels distinctly sweaty in a way that makes him feel disgusting. He hardly even remembers how they’d fallen asleep, and a small part of him feels regret over the fact that they’d done nothing _but_ sleep. He doesn’t want to believe that they had wasted a night, and so he doesn’t; instead, he elects to think of it as a soft relaxation to get over their journey. It feels… domestic.

“Good morning, sunshine,” Richie says, and when Eddie looks at him, his eyes aren’t half-shut with sleep like his own are, and he still has his glasses on.

“Mm,” Eddie mumbles. “Were you watching me sleep?”

He cracks a toothy smile. “Only weirdos and psychopaths watch people sleep.”

“Which one are you?”

“Perhaps both!” he says. “But you’ve let me into your bed now, so my ultimate goal has been accomplished.”

“Letting a psychopath into my bed, huh?”

“Psychopath _and_ weirdo, thank you very much, Will Graham.”

Eddie smiles. “We should see if they have Netflix on this TV.”

“We should see if those curtains close.”

“You weren’t sleeping, anyway.”

“No, but you were.” Richie leans forwards and presses a small kiss to his lips. “Now, don’t panic, but we didn’t have time to brush our teethies last night.”

“Ugh,” Eddie grumbles. “We’re fucking disgusting. Are you trying to get me out of bed?”

“Well, if I’m being honest—” he says, and he rolls his crotch against Eddie’s hip, “— I want anything _but_ to get out of bed with you right now, if you know what I mean. _However,_ the shower, I’ve heard, is absolutely gorgeous, and —”

“Cut it,” he interrupts. “You don’t care about showering.”

Richie waits for a moment, and then sighs, admitting defeat. “Breakfast opens in like, twenty minutes, and we didn’t get to eat last night, so I’m _starving._ ”

Eddie snorts, lifting one hand to brush some hair out of his boyfriend’s face. “Breakfast also won’t close for another couple of hours.”

“I know, but I thought we could go out for lunch, so the earlier that we eat breakfast, the more ready we’ll be for that!” he explains with joy, and Eddie gets the impression that he’s been working on this persuasion since he woke up. “We can stroll around the bay, maybe find a nice burger place, or something. It’s meant to be pretty hot today, so I’m thinking ice cream, too!”

“You’re a pig,” Eddie says, shaking his head. “All of that is so unhealthy. I don’t know how you haven’t had a heart attack, yet.”

“Cholesterol doesn’t affect me, baby. I’m immune.”

“You are not immune.”

“Mmmmm, talk more about the imminent heart attacks that I’m going to have, honey!” He throws his head back and gives a faux-moan that has Eddie worrying about the thickness of the walls again. Richie continues, groaning, “It really turns me on!”

“If you keep eating like this, you’re going to die before you’re forty.”

“Mm! More!”

“It’s all going to build up in your arteries and it’s going to give you freaking clots, and strokes, and shit.”

“Oh, _God,_ I said more!”

“You’re going to end up like my mother.”

“ _Fuck!_ Oh, _baby,_ yes! That’s the ticket!” he shouts, and his legs spasm against Eddie’s, his eyes rolling to the back of his head. “Oh, fuck! Sonia! _Soniaaaaaaa!”_

Eddie rolls his eyes and rolls himself on top of him, slapping his hand over Richie’s mouth. “I hate you,” he tells him. “And you stink. We’re showering before we go anywhere.”

Richie narrows his eyes at him. “Mm—Mmm. _Mm–_ mm–mm–mmm–mmmmm!”

An eyebrow raised, he allows his lips to be momentarily free. “Speak now or forever hold your peace, Trashmouth.”

“I said, _you’re_ the one who stinks. You were sweating like a pedo in a playground last night.”

“I wonder whose fault that was, you freaking koala.”

“I do have chlamydia.”

Eddie slides his palms down Richie’s chest, rubbing his pecs over the slightly, disgustingly damp button-up shirt. “I know you do,” he says, and undoes one of the buttons. “And herpes, and gonorrhoea, and…”

Richie reaches upwards, unbuttoning the beginning of Eddie’s buttons in turn. “Syphilis. Don’t forget syphilis.”

“Of course,” Eddie whispers, rolling his hips down. “I could get you some treatment for that, you know.”

“Treatment?” Richie repeats hopefully, and his eyes flicker from their shared gaze down to focus on getting the rest of the buttons out of the way. He bucks his crotch upwards to meet Eddie halfway, and the latter doesn’t bother to try and hide his content in the form of a whimper. 

“Yeah,” he says, pushing apart the two loose slips of fabric to reveal Richie’s chest, his stomach, the brief dusting of hair trailing down to the jeans that remain stubbornly on. “In the shower.”

“Good idea. _Very_ good idea. You know, I wish I’d had that idea ten minutes ago.”

“Shut up.”

*

The shower floor does absolutely nothing good for Eddie’s knees, and he’s beginning to think that his sex life with Richie is destined to fuck up his legs. But despite the ache that settles within the first two minutes, Eddie stays down there until his skin is bruised and his face is sprayed with a fluid different in colour and density than the water that’s dribbling over the two of them. His head goes fuzzy from the humidity and the pleasure that overcomes him when Richie takes him in his long and tentative fingers and grips him with the dutiful and loving hold that allows Eddie to fuck his slippery, wet fist.

When they’re done and dusted and both clean as Eddie could ensure, they get dressed in their normal attire and Eddie’s only mildly embarrassed at the fact that his shorts show off his discoloured knees, and that his shirt showed off two or three hickeys. His heartbeat speeds up to ten-million miles an hour when Richie jokingly pulls on a pair of Eddie’s shorts and it makes him want to drop to his knees all over again. Richie’s legs are more muscular and hairier than his own are and he thinks that they actually suit Richie more than him, but the bulge that it shows off is just indecent — and almost certainly illegal. Eddie forced him to pull his jeans back on. 

They scoff down waffles and pancakes and anything that they can get their hands on — it’s included in the hotel stay, after all, so why not? As much as Eddie rants about cholesterol, he can’t say no to some buttery waffles and pancakes slathered with syrup every once in a while. It’s a delightful change from the shit his mother feeds him at home. 

Speaking of mothers; he has about fifty missed calls and approximately two-hundred and thirty-seven texts from Sonia, who had quite clearly not appreciated Eddie’s quickly written note. There are threats of police reports, but she knows him too well by now — she knows that he will _not_ come home if he gets the police involved, and Eddie is also not averse to telling them the shit that she’s put him through over the years. He supposes that that’s what she’s afraid of. He ignores every notification that he receives until he settles for just muting her number. In the meantime, he exchanges message after message with the rest of the Losers. 

Stan updates him on the goings-on of the will-they-won’t-they between he and Mike. Mike tells him all about this new television show that Stan has started him on. Ben sends him different analyses of books that they’ve both read and movies that they’ve both watched, just like he does when he’s at home. Bill texts him about mindless things like video game characters and comic books. Beverly reminds him about protection and feeds him information on Patrick; he’s not breathed a _word_ about their exchange, thank the Heavens. Eddie calls him a pussy ten times per message.

Richie annoys everybody on the groupchat as usual. His inappropriate jokes and poorly timed comments remind Eddie of what it is that makes Richie so admirable despite his awfulness. He thinks he’s heard something similar to his attraction: perhaps he’s morosexual. Or humoursexual. Or something.

After breakfast, they stay true to Richie’s wishes and go for a stroll around the beautiful city. It’s nothing like Derry, in the best possible way that one could imagine. Camden has a glow about it that makes everything else dim in comparison. A distant version of Eddie can almost see himself settling down here; owning a house near enough the harbour so that they had a view of the ocean but didn’t have to deal with the constant wafts of fish. They pass by a school as they walk and Eddie’s poisonous mind involuntarily dives so far into the future that he imagines himself having kids there. _Calm down, teenage dream,_ he thinks.

They head down to the bay and spend a while looking out over the water before Richie has a _eureka!_ moment and decides that the best course of action from then on would be to hire out one of these boats and go for a ride. As romantic as Eddie finds the idea, he’s pretty darn sure that boats wouldn’t be included in the price of the hotel, so their empty wallets scream a wallowing _nope_ to that idea. Instead, they find a small ice cream parlour and manage to acquire seats outside, the sun eating away at them and their cones (Eddie has to nip away to buy some sunscreen from the shop next door). They watch the doting rays of the sun glimmer on the ways and sparkle against passerby’s sunglasses and phones, one hand on their cones and one hand intertwined in the fingers of the other boy, over the table, proud, in a way that they can’t be back at home. 

When they’re done, Eddie squirts hand sanitiser onto both of their sticky hands and pulls Richie down into a brief kiss, just because he can. Nobody glares at them or throws shit at them (or beats them to a pulp and throws them over a bridge to die) because here, it’s not the 1930s, like Eddie so often relates to Derry. Richie tenses if only for a nano-second before he himself remembers that it’s safe. 

Eddie suggests hiking up Mt. Battie and Richie calls him batty for even suggesting that they walk for longer than twenty minutes, never mind up a mountain. So they take a look at the cute little village that Camden is home to, buying little keepsakes for each other and some for the losers when they return. They’re laughing about a tiny fridge magnet (it’s clearly Roman, or something, because this old boy is naked as the day he was born) when a woman with striking black hair and a matching striking smile offers to take a photo of them both. 

They accept, because they’d like the memories, and so Richie passes over his phone and proceeds to act awkward for another ten seconds (the dude has _no idea_ how to pose in photos) before Eddie positions him himself and they both grin into the camera. She takes a couple, and then tells Richie to give him a kiss, and takes one whilst they’re kissing, too. They thank her vehemently and watch her wave before she returns to the woman that she had been walking with, and Eddie’s grin somehow gets wider as he sees them link hands as well. 

Richie sends the photos to their group chat, because it would only be downright stupid to post them to any social media, although they’re so perfect that Eddie is almost tempted despite anything. But they’re too close, too cosy, and Bowers would have a field day when they got back. 

**loserzz**

**Richie (11:01):** **_[ 6 IMAGES ATTACHED ]_ **

**Richie (11:01):** _blessing ur guys’ eyes_

**Ben (11:01):** _You guys look so happy. :)_

**Bill (11:01):** _eddie congrats on getting him out of bed before 1!_

**Richie (11:02):** _i woke up before him >:( _

**Richie (11:02):** _thank u bentley , love of my life. should’ve brought u along ;)_

**Ben (11:03):** _I’d rather not third wheel. :)_

**Stan (11:05):** _wowza richie’s been lucky_

**Eddie (11:05):** _Aw thank you Stanley that’s very nice of you._

**Stan (11:05):** _i meant bcos of the STATE of ur fuckin knees LMAO_

**Richie (11:06):** _eds has just been dedicated to cleaning the floor of the bathroom that is all :)_

**Eddie (11:06):** _for fuck sake._

**Bev (11:06):** _looks like you guys are having fun! stay safe!_

**Eddie (11:07):** _:)_

**Bev (11:07):** _;)_

**Richie (11:08):** _8==========D~~~~~_

**Bev (11:08):** _no_

**Richie (11:08):** _(‿ˠ‿)_

**Bev (11:08):** _hmmm_

**Bev (11:08):** _( . Y . )_

**Richie (11:08):** _miss marsh! (0//////0)_

**Mike (11:09):** _that village looks beautiful! Glad you guys are having fun._

**Eddie (11:10):** _it is beautiful i want to live here forever._

**Stan (11:11):** _so it’s gay friendly ?_

**Eddie (11:11):** _very gay friendly we’ve seen two other gay couples already._

**Richie (11:11):** _first ting i checked : > _

**Stan (11:12):** _ppl are actually fine with it?_

**Eddie (11:12):** _we have been holding hands all day and people just smile. :)_

**Stan (11:12):** _huh_

**Richie (11:12):** _come join us stan_

**Stan (11:13):** _L_

_M_

_A_

_o_

_o_

_o_

_o_

_。_

_。_

_._

_._

_._

_._

**Mike (11:15):** _maybe we can all go up at some point at a later date. :)_

**Stan (11:15):** _stem_

**Richie (11:17):** _stan.exe has stopped working!_

**Mike (11:17):** _D:_

**Stan (11:17):** _duck sake_

**Richie (11:18):** **_[ 1 IMAGE ATTACHED ]_ **

**Richie (11:18):** _duck_

**Stan (11:18):** _please leave that duck alone?_

**Eddie (11:24):** _the duck tried to peck him or bite him or something and he screamed and dropped it and it chased him down the street. :)_

**Eddie (11:24):** _an old woman laughed and asked me ‘if he’s mine.’_

**Eddie (11:25):** _sadly. he is._

**Richie (11:28):** _I WAS ATTACKED_

**Bill (11:30):** _storytime: rabid duck tried to kill me!_

**Stan (11:31):** _storytime: crazy bird tries to bite my dick off_

**Bill (11:31):** _LOL_

**Richie (11:32):** _has more game than u do_

  
  


Eddie holds the stitching pain in his side as he wipes excess tears from his eyes, occasional giggles still seeping out from his chest as he recalls the scene. Richie’s panting out his unfitness beside him as they take cover from ducks and other extremely dangerous animals inside a cute little candy store. It’s all Eddie can do when he realises where they are to drag Richie outside before he devours the entire shop. 

When the clock strikes twelve, Richie makes a joke about Cinderella ( _that’s midnight, dumbass_ ) and then suggests that they go and find somewhere to get lunch. Stomach instinctively rumbling at the idea, Eddie agrees, and they set off on an adventure around the village, assessing out of ten every restaurant or cafe that they come across.

They settle on a cute restaurant that Richie immediately falls in love with. Eddie’s not too sure why — maybe it’s the indie music playing or the wooden aesthetic that it has going on, but they head in and are directed towards a table for two that is immediately decorated with a lit candle in the centre. They are given black leather menus that feel cool and smooth on the pads of his fingertips and he can see where Richie’s press in, denting the dark fabric and leaving craters from his chewed down nails. 

“This place seems vegan,” Richie says.

Eddie narrows his eyes at him. “What does that even mean?”

“It seems vegan.”

“The menus are leather.”

Richie purses his lips, humming in consideration. “I can’t see any meat on this menu.”

Eddie diverts his eyes for the first time down to the extended list of dishes, the prices actually semi-affordable. “No, look,” he says. “Grilled steak with herb butter and fries. Grill King Fish. Liver pâté. They have a whole section for hamburgers.”

“ _Ooh,_ look at that! Grilled chicken taco…”

“The steak salad sounds nice.”

“Hey,” Richie says suddenly, bouncing up from behind his menu. “Remember _iCarly_?”

He rolls his eyes. “Don’t tell me that the waitress reminds you of Miranda Cosgrove.”

“I was not going to say that, but — but, actually, now that you’ve mentioned it…”

“Rich.”

“Remember that guy that worked at the _Groovy Smoothie?_ His name was… His name was T-Bo!”

Eddie hides his smile behind the menu. He nods. “Yeah?”

“He made those fucking spaghetti tacos! Why aren’t those a real thing?!”

Eddie sits back and groans at him, exasperated grin seeping across his face. “You’re so stupid.”

“Not what you said last night.” And he’s right.

The flouncy, familiar waitress bobs back up to their table in a gush of bouncing hair and skirt and looking at Richie like he’s Shawn Mendes, or something. 

“Good afternoon, boys,” she says, and the plural makes Eddie snort a little bit. “You two from away?”

“Derry,” Richie tells her, all polite smiles. “Not too far.”

“Oh! I’ve always wanted to visit,” she says, lying through her teeth.

“Don’t,“ Eddie deadpans. “It’s shit. Could I get some water?”

Richie frowns at him, but nods to the girl. “Same, please.”

She faulters, nods, bounces away. _Bounce, bounce._ She’s doing that on purpose. Eddie can see the disgusting eyes of other men in the restaurant follow her and suddenly feels a little guilty. Then he doesn’t. She’s doing it on purpose. His fingernails sting his palm.

“Carly’s gone downhill,” he murmurs.

“Hey,” Richie says, leaning forwards. “What’s up with you, hothead?”

“She’s — Nothing.”

He lifts an accusing eyebrow. “Nothing?”

Eddie nods, firmly looking down at the menu instead of his eyes. 

“Here you are,” she hums, placing two transparent glasses in front of each of them. There’s ice in Richie’s. None in his. Richie doesn’t like ice in his water. Eddie switches their positions and brings his iced water to his lips. 

“Thanks,” Richie says awkwardly, nervously eyeing the waitress who is rudely eyeing Eddie, a tick in her left eye and tongue in her cheek.

She turns back to Richie. “Ready to order?” she asks.

“Uh. I think we’ll need a moment. Huh, Eds?” He kicks him under the table. “Eds?”

Eddie huffs. “Don’t call me Eds,” he says, for the first time in what feels like ages. “We’ll need a moment.”

She walks away, a loss of bounce in her step now. Eddie only slightly feels bad. 

“What’s up with you?” Richie asks again. “Don’t say nothing.”

Eddie scowls. “Nothing.”

“Eds.”

“Stop it.”

“Eddie Spaghetti.”

“Richie.”

“Eddie-Bear.”

“Trashmouth.”

“I’ll show you _trashmouth._ ”

Eddie feels a thrill down his spine. He visibly shivers. Then he sighs. “She’s flirting with you.”

Richie splutters a laugh, shakes his head at him. “Eds, darling, light of my life… I don’t know if you’ve actually noticed, with all of the times you’ve been distracted by my dick in your mouth, but I’m _gay.”_

“I– I know you are! But she doesn’t!”

“Do you want me to… tell her?” he chuckles. “Come on, Eds. She’s just being nice. She’s doing her job.”

“Hm.”

“I’m right.”

“She’s looking at you, all — all sexual. Bet she wouldn’t if she knew what you were _actually_ like.”

He smirks. “What’s that?”

“You don’t shower enough, so you smell.”

“Thank you, Gremlin.”

“Do you even know what deodorant is?”

“Is that what you use your mom’s smegma for?”

“I— God, that’s fucking gross!” Eddie gags. “Oh my god, I want to die! That’s so disgusting!”

Richie laughs in delight at Eddie’s disgust, reaching over the table and grabbing both of his hands. When Eddie stops trying to pull away, still feeling _icky_ , he lifts Eddie’s hands to his mouth and presses a soft kiss to each knuckle. He can’t help but smile. He hopes that Miranda Cosgrove is watching. 

“I know the village is beautiful and all,” Richie whispers. “But I kind of can’t wait until we’re cozied up in bed again.”

Eddie licks his lips. “I know,” he says. “When we get back, I need to shower. You can distract yourself.”

The lip that’s trapped in Richie’s teeth gets slowly released. He’s staring at his lips, too. Eddie can feel it. “Are you trying to make me think of you showering?”

“Me? Not at all.”

“Are you ready to order?” Miranda asks, after creeping upon them like a ghost. 

“Oh!” Richie says, startled, though he doesn’t let go of Eddie’s hands. He looks down at the menu through the gap between their arms, and says, “You wanna go first, baby?”

Face unwillingly heating, Eddie says to the girl, “I’ll have the steak salad, please. Medium.”

She nods and writes it down on her notepad, but says nothing else to him. To Richie, “And what would you like?”

“The grilled chicken taco. Thanks.” 

She nods, smiles, and the two of them hand her their menus. She takes Richie’s first, then Eddie’s, and her eyes linger on their conjoined fingers before she turns around. Eddie squeezes Richie’s hand as she walks away from their table.

Her flirtation is stunted when the time comes to bring them their dishes, and remains that way as she routinely comes and checks on them, asks _how is the food?_ and _would you two like anymore water?_

Eddie is over the moon.

He places his cutlery to the left of his plate when he’s finished and he watches as Richie licks the remnants of the succulent juices of meat off of his long fingers; catching the drops before they can slip down onto his palm or wrist. Eddie shoves the provided napkins in his face and places his bottle of hand sanitiser on the table, ready and waiting. He squirts some onto his palms and rubs them together, and when Richie does the same, the two of them take turns making crude noises when squeezing their hands together. 

They argue over who pays until Eddie wins. He points the hand sanitiser towards him, threatens to paint his face with it, and declares, _“You got the vacation, I can get the food!”_ It’s a godsend that it’s cheap — and it’s a godsend that they both had tap water. He essentially empties his wallet, and leaves Miranda Cosgrove a generous tip.

When they leave, Eddie drags Richie by the shirt into the nearest nook he can locate. He hears Richie’s gasp as his back hits the wall and Eddie pounces onto his tip-toes to swallow it in a kiss, holding the sides of his face with his strongly-scented hands and preening when Richie holds his hips. He tastes like chicken and his lips are slightly spicy, but they add a bite to their meld that encourages Eddie on. 

They pull apart when Eddie starts to become breathless, and the two of them stare at each other for a moment until somebody in the street wolf-whistles, and their faces grow redder than Eddie’s shorts. 

They find the same ice cream parlour that they’d frequented before lunch and this time, Eddie gets a mint-choc-chip, and Richie gets a vibrant-multicoloured bubblegum. Richie’s lips and tongue turn bright blue. The two flavours melt together when they kiss once again on a bench overlooking the sea. Time wastes away in a blur of choked laughs and tickling digs. 

Strolling around the edges of the village as the sun begins to find recluse beyond the untouched mountain tracks, Eddie’s legs finally begin to ache. The stolen rests on benches and the quick lunch in iCarly’s hideyhole being the only safe haven that his poor thighs have had, he’s desperate to rediscover the comfort of those white-red sheets that he can hear calling for him, poking his willpower. He’s not hungry but Richie is offhandedly mentioning how they’re probably going to be serving dinner back at the hotel now. The evening air is nipping goosebumps onto the arm that’s pressed against more cold-bitten skin, hair standing up straight like static. 

Richie holds Eddie's hand for most of the walk back before the arrangement becomes too sweaty and Eddie insists that the two of them switch places, and so they continue to swing their arms against the breeze as the hotel grows nearer. The shimmering lights of bedrooms holding mysteries and stories like their own makes Eddie yearn for the private quarters of their solid four walls like a constant ache in his chest (and his legs). 

When the warmth of their room finally hits his face, Eddie can only release a groan of appreciation before stumbling face-first into the soft bed, which has been kindly made since they’d left it that morning. He grips onto the sheets, the scent of air freshener and fabric softener filtering into his nose. 

“You look like you’ve never seen a bed before,” Richie says, sitting down next to him, placing his palm to the back of Eddie’s head. “And I _know_ that to be false.”

“There's literally nothing better than coming back to clean sheets,” Eddie says, though his speech is muffled. “I could fall asleep right here.” He could. Hanging half off the bed and killing his knees even more.

“No!” Richie exclaims, almost too quickly. This hand flies off of the back of his head and when Eddie looks up, he’s nervously fiddling with his glasses. “Uh. Didn’t you want to go and shower?”

“Are you saying I smell? That’s my line.”

“ _You_ wanted to shower. That’s all I’m saying! So — So you know – you shouldn’t go to sleep yet. Not yet.”

Eddie rolls his eyes and pushes himself up and off of the bed, missing the warmth dearly before he daydreams about how hot the water will be, lathering his skin and steaming up the bathroom. He places his palms to either side of Richie’s face and pecking his puckered lips. Richie hands him his bag with a flustered smile and Eddie takes it, mindlessly bringing it into the bathroom with him. 

He’s not even registered _why_ he might have it with him until he’s rooting around looking for his hairbrush, and his fingers brush against the object wrapped up with secrecy, and the rate at which the blood in his body splits — half _up,_ half _down —_ is thrillingly humiliating. He realises in a moment what Richie had been aiming for — this. The general and unspoken consensus that tonight is the night. _Tonight is the night._

It’s the subtlety of it that has Eddie somewhat breathless as well. The fact that it was a suggestion. A _here, it’s here, but it’s your choice._

When he steps underneath the boiling steam of water it is not empty handed. He cleans and scrubs every inch of his body before delving into using the item the way it has only been used a couple of times before. He utilises the douche and doesn’t feel as awkward about it, this time. This is what it had all been leading up to. 

There’s a limp in his step when he’s finished and stepping out, dripping onto the polished grey floor and feeling ready. He towels himself off and wraps it then around his waist, the trace betrayal of his brief arousal hidden away. He stares at himself in the mirror for a while after wiping away the condensation, and debates whipping out his shaving kit, but there’s nothing to really shave. He pokes and prods at his face and tries to picture what Richie sees when he looks at him but it comes to a null. Every squish and pull of his skin makes him look weird. 

He runs his fingers through his wet hair and debates utilising the hair dryer — would that be trying too hard? — no, it’s fine. He doesn’t _need_ to try for Richie anymore. He knows that. Richie will look at him with hearts piercing through his glasses even if he’s throwing up peach schnapps and lemonade. But it’s common knowledge that if you sleep with wet hair, you’ll catch a cold, and Eddie is _not_ in the mood for getting sick and mollycoddled anytime soon.

So he dries his hair until it’s just on the right side of damp and the beginnings of fluffy. When he’s done, he takes his toothbrush and gives his teeth another run through the mill, not wanting to impress any bad taste on his boyfriend, and then pulls on a pair of underwear beneath his towel. The towel drops to the ground before Eddie folds it up and places it onto the heater, ready to be changed. He both scrutinises and admires his body in his reflection; skinny and bruised but tan. And he kind of likes the bruises. 

He takes a deep breath. Two. Three. And he opens the door. 

Richie is sitting on the fucking _headboard_ of the bed, glaring at the television, remote balancing on his knee. He looks as if the television has done something to personally attack him. Like it’s killed his family.

“You don’t put cooked chicken with raw chicken you _dumbass_ ,” he shouts, clapping his hands together once and groaning. “Do you even know how to cook? Are you even fucking qualified? Don’t look at Gordon like that, he’s _right!”_

“Rich?” Eddie says, shutting the door to the bathroom with a soft _click,_ bag hanging loosely off of his bare shoulder. The room is a little chilly on his skin and his tight underwear are too short to provide a shield for his thighs, and he feels his skin begin to prickle with goosebumps. He’s not sure whether they’re just because of the cold. 

When Richie looks over to him, he actually does a double take, like in the movies. Eddie can feel Richie’s gaze raking over him, from his hair to his feet, lingering on his chest and on his groin. He can’t help but chuckle when Richie’s mouth hangs open a bit, catching flies, and his hand subconsciously rises to push his glasses up. His other hand flies to the remote control, and he switches off _Kitchen Nightmares_ without even looking. 

“Hi,” he says, his voice breaking on the word. “Uh. Hi.”

Eddie’s lips quirk up in a smile, and he throws his bag onto the bed. “Hi,” he says back. “I see you entertained yourself.”

“Uh,” he responds eloquently, and Eddie can see his eyes trying to stay firmly on his face and not stray. “You know I can’t resist Gordon.”

“You’re ruled by your stomach.”

He arches an eyebrow. “I gotta say, honey, it’s _really_ not my _stomach_ that’s ruling me right now.”

Eddie’s eyes flicker down towards Richie’s crotch and isn’t disappointed at the sight of the beginnings of an erection, buried deep in his jeans, teasing him. Eddie wants to take them off of him, rip them off, leave him as bare as he is himself. But there’s something thrilling about being so exposed whilst Richie is there, fully dressed, sitting with his legs spread and his hands dangling between them, sheer dominance in his stance and yet awe in his face, oozing admiration, seeping infatuation. Stars in his eyes. Hearts in his eyes. Flashing. This then that. 

Eddie watches Richie slide from atop the headboard to the bed, legs dangling over the edge. He watches Richie reach out, hand shaking, towards him. It looks like he’s holding his breath, until he says to him, “Come here?”

He complies. The suggestion is open but Eddie can’t even _dream_ of refusing when Richie is looking at him like that, like his eyes are begging for him. His hands are begging for his body to rub itself on them. His hair is begging for Eddie’s fingers in it — Eddie’s nose nuzzled in it — to be slammed and tousled against the pillow. 

Eddie walks between Richie’s outstretched arms and he _preens_ when he’s enveloped in his grip. He presses his palms to Richie’s cheeks and gazes down at him, at his lips ( _begging)_ and aching to kiss them. Richie presses his palms firmly to Eddie’s behind, pulling him impossibly closer, fingers digging against the fabric, testing it. 

“ _Sun_ ,” Richie whispers. His gaze flickers from his eyes to his lip to his eyes to his lips and again and again like he can’t decide. “You’re so beautiful.”

Eddie’s eyes stray over his dark hair, dark eyes, pale skin, and he whispers in turn, “ _Moon._ ” 

Richie’s tongue wets his lips before he begins to speak, and he says, “My favourite _Pokémon_ g—” but Eddie doesn’t let him finish, because it’s stupid and they were _having a moment_ and it’s not even the best _Pokémon_ game by _far._ So he kisses him to shut him up — it’s worked every other time that he needed it to, and it works again now. He swallows up the words and threads his curls between his fingers, his thumbs brushing over his cheekbones, eyes fluttered shut. He tastes like mint. He can’t help but smile a little, the image of Richie overloading his mouth with gum entering his mind. Just for him. 

He tips Richie’s head backwards ever so slightly and slips in his tongue when Richie’s mouth drops open for one hot breath. He hums at the dance of tongues that Richie initiates and he lifts his right leg, placing it snug against Richie’s, and then his left, and he settles himself into his lap. There’s an echo in his head. This position. 

He’s acutely aware of one of Richie’s hands sliding underneath the fabric prison of his underwear and giving one of his cheeks a hard, appreciative squeeze. He presses himself against him completely, leaving no part of his front untouched, pushing his half-hardness against Richie’s stomach only so that he knows. Richie’s other hand slips over Eddie’s back, small scratches, soft scratches lingering over his skin, holding him. 

Eddie pulls away from the kiss with a wet _pop_ and hesitated for just a moment before he removes his hands from the hair that he’s become so accustomed to them being buried in. He lowers them instead, dragging them down the front of his boyfriend’s shirt, and he circles the pad of his finger over the button on his jeans. 

“Can I?” he says, hushed against wet lips. 

“You really have to ask?” Richie says. “He’s gonna pop out himself, if you’re not quick.”

Eddie uses his fingers to undo the button, pressing his mouth against Richie’s jaw, careful to avoid a sore-looking pimple that he’d popped earlier that day. He pins open-mouthed and wet kisses to the skin, sucking small love-bites every once in a while, because Eddie hardly ever gets to be on the giving end of those. After the button comes the fly, and he blindly unzips his jeans.

“Love it when you kiss my neck,” Richie mumbles, even though Eddie is still kissing his jaw, so he redirects his attention to the pulse point on his neck, pausing occasionally in his kissing to nibble and lick over his work. 

Eddie reaches beyond the zipper and takes the template of Richie’s dick in his grasp, holding his bulge through his underwear and giving it the kind of teasing squeeze that Richie had given his ass. He laughs warmly at the sound that it elicits from him, accepting the immediate open-mouthed kiss that Richie implants upon his lips when he turns his head again. Eddie allows his tongue inside and he tastes it with his own yet again, giving and taking, giving and taking. Their teeth clang together once or twice, but Eddie doesn’t give a fuck. 

“This is mine,” Eddie tells him, breath hot against his lips, heart heaving in his chest. He bites down on Richie’s bottom lip, dragging it out purposefully, and he rolls the ball of his hand against the other man’s cock, then wraps his fingers around the length — still covered — jerking it to life and asserting that Richie know _just_ what Eddie is talking about. He releases his bottom lip with a _snap._ “Nobody else’s.”

Richie bumps his hips upwards, creating a friction against Eddie’s hand that Eddie doesn’t deny him. He licks across his lip, presumably tasting the wound, and says, “Definitely not iCarly’s.”

“ _No,”_ he agrees, nodding himself into another kiss. He licks deep, he tongues deep — then shallow, quick and then slow, soft and then rough, devouring. Richie lets him. There’s saliva wetting the skin around his mouth and he’d be damned if he could give less of a fuck. Richie accepts it all — nibbles at Eddie’s lips at times and at others brushes the roof of Eddie’s mouth, tickling him on purpose, squeezing his sides as he does so. Eddie’s nose is beginning to hurt from being pressed so hard into the hard glasses opposite him. This makes up for it, he thinks erratically, pushing his groin against Richie’s torso without even thinking, aching for touch. Richie only pulls him in closer by the ass, squeezing it, allowing Eddie to rub himself against his torso. 

He’s not totally in control of his hand when it rises and reaches down beneath Richie’s underwear, taking his dick in his hand, now with no rude barrier separating them. His palm is sweaty enough to rid of any unwanted friction as he slips up and down his shaft, waking it up completely, bouncing up enthusiastically in his grip. 

Richie pants into his mouth at the same rate as Eddie’s jerks, pausing their kiss to do so, and Eddie just sucks at his bottom lip, eyes wicked and curious as he watches Richie’s pupils fatten. Their eyes are both hooded and when Richie allows his own to flutter shut, Eddie tightens his grip a slight amount, pressing his thumb down against this slit. He bats his eyelids innocently when Richie’s fly open. 

“You’re killin’ me here, baby,” Richie tells him. “Looking at me like that. Jesus.”

Eddie pecks his cheek. “You want me to stop?”

“Fuck, no. Do I look stupid? Don’t answer that.” He grins, all teeth and gaps and cute. “But _I_ could be doing something for _you.”_

“You got this place for us.”

“Our _friends_ got this place for us, too — _please_ don’t tell me you’re gonna give all of them handjobs as well. We both know that when you get a taste of Hanlon, you’re never gonna wanna come back to me.”

“I don’t want to give you a handjob, Rich,” Eddie says.

“Oh.” His voice cracks again. “Then you might want to consider ceasing thine movement, Eds, because I don’t think this will last long, otherwise.”

“That’s not what I mean,” he says, and he circles his fingertip over the head of his dick completely, now. “You know what I mean.”

He watches Richie gulp, Adam's apple bobbing up, down, into place. He feels Richie’s grip on him tighten, one hand on his ass and one on his hip. He shares the deep breath that he takes. 

“Are you sure?” he asks. All trace of humour has slipped from his tone. Eddie nods. “Can you say it?”

“I’m sure.”

“You’re sure that you’re sure.”

“I’m sure, Richie. Are you sure?” He removes his hand from Richie’s jeans, placing it flat against his chest. “Do you want to?”

“Are you _really_ asking me that?” 

“Tell me.”

He feels Richie’s thumb stroke comfort over his hip bone. “I want to.”

“You want to.”

“I want to. You want to.” Richie raises an eyebrow. “How convenient.”

Eddie smiles — and he can’t help but fall against him, pulling him into a sudden, full hug, arms tight over his shoulders. Richie returns it after a moment of surprised hesitation, circling Eddie’s waist, calloused fingernails scraping his skin. They remain as such for a moment or so, and then Eddie’s weight is lifted into the air in such a quick motion that it almost takes the air out of him. He’s spun around — flipped around — and his back hits the distressed sheets. It forces a breathy laugh out of him, which trickles into an unending drizzle of giggles, drawled louder and further when Richie steadies himself in a hover above him. Richie’s staring down at him, watching him laugh; Eddie can see through the narrow slits in his eyes between chuckles. He’s grinning, too. And he’s really right above him.

“ _Eres caliente,_ Spaghetti,” Richie beams. “Even more so when you pop out that cute little dimple!”

“Shut up about my dimple!” he squeals, still giggling. “Talk more Spanish.”

“Oh, oh! Does Eddie-bear like it when I speak my _Español?_ ”

Eddie reaches out, palms flattening on Richie’s cheeks, pushing his glasses up so they stay in place. “ _Sí_.”

“Well! _Que interesante._ Who would have thought that little Eddie Kaspbrak have a language fetish?”

“I mean, I prefer French. But I’m having to make do.”

“ _Oui? Je suis_ want-to-kiss-you.” 

“Hm. Your Spanish is better.”

“ _D'acuerdo,”_ he says, leaning down and pressing a quick peck to his lips. “ _Te deseo.”_

Eddie lowers his hands, moving them from his face to his chest. He picks nimble fingers at his shirt. “What does that mean?”

“I want you.” He nips at him again. “ _Tienes los ojos más bonitos del mundo.”_

Eddie slides his hands underneath Richie’s shirt, palms rising from his abdomen to his chest, pushing up the fabric as he does so. He asks, “And that?

“You have the prettiest eyes in the world,” he tells him, shucking his shirt the rest of the way over his head and throwing it to some other corner of the hotel room. Eddie rakes his eyes over his body with sheer appreciation, not needing to drag his eyes away and so keeping his gaze there happily.

“You know,” Eddie says. “I’m starting to worry about what they’re teaching you in this Spanish class.” 

“Well, Señora De Rosa is a freak. She likes to tie me up sometimes. That’s where I’ve been getting all my experience.” He shrugs. “Guess the secret is out.”

“Señora De Rosa is an old bitch.”

“¡ _Dios mío!_ You speak to your mother with that mouth?”

“I didn’t even swear, dickwad. And stop talking about my mother, would you?” he hums. “Freud would have a field day.”

Richie leans down, captures him in yet another kiss, shifting his weight from pressuring his palms to his elbows, bringing him closer. The taste of him never grows old, never boring. _Mint for me._ His fingers brush the side of his face as their tongues meet, and when Richie’s tented, unzipped jeans grind down against him, he whines against his lips

“ _Ouch_ ,” he hisses. “Your zipper is pointy.”

“Sorry,” is the whispered reply, and then wet lips are tracing their way down his jaw, and then his neck, his jugular, and Eddie’s heart is racing like a gentle, hungry tiger is approaching him with the speed of swaying flowers. Richie licks his skin so softly, gentle brushstrokes that make all the hair on his body stand up straight. 

When he moves onto his chest, trailing saliva down the bare skin, his fingers fly to Eddie’s nipples and Eddie starts, hot breath shooting from his mouth. Electric jolts through his body, a shooting star zapping to his dick. He knows that Richie can feel it. Can sense it.

“Fuck,” Eddie curses. Richie pauses at his navel, his lips pursed over the dusty trail of hair leading beneath his underwear. “Do you want to suck me off?”

There’s a glint in his eyes at the question. Like there is every sparse time it’s asked. He watches Richie lick his lips, gaze flickering down to the bulge beneath his chin. His thumbs roll over Eddie’s nipples again, and he nods, and says, “Yes, please.”

“I’m ready,” he tells him, shifting his hips upwards, lifting them minimally off of the bed. “Take… Take my underwear off.”

“Oh, God. Yes. Oh, my. I’m a — I’m a lucky little bitch, aren’t I?” 

He grins. “Maybe so. But only if you get a move on.”

“Aye, aye!” Richie salutes, and though he misses the attention on his chest, it makes him chuckle. His fingers dip beneath the waistband of his underwear and he tugs them down slowly, torturously slowly, his cold fingernails skimming over his skin. His lips part slightly when he reveals the contents beneath even though he’s seen them so many times beforehand. Each time he takes a look at his dick, his mouth waters like it’s the first time, and _Gods, they’re both so fucking gay,_ he thinks, like he’s realising it all over again. Like he’s thirteen and Richie’s just complimented his legs and he’s going to go home and jerk off over it. Like he’s fourteen and just discovered porn for the first time because Richie finally showed him how to turn off the parental controls on his browser. Like he’s fifteen and his heart is fluttering every time Richie even freaking breathes. Like he’s sixteen and he’s finally coming to terms with it.

Like he’s seventeen and in love. About to make love in a hotel room in a town that’s the complete opposite of Derry. Be made love to. Consummate.

Richie’s grip is warm and slick with spit when he wraps his fingers around his shaft. His wrist jerks up, down, making Eddie arch his spine, dig his fingers into his hair. His breath is hot and sweet on the head glistening with the evidence of his early arousal. He would be panting if his breath weren’t so slow. 

When he swirls his tongue around the tip it’s with a sublime tease and sensation that shakes him to his core. He kisses the side of the shaft when Eddie hums with a deep admiration and grateful splutter. He kisses his cock in the same way that he litters his neck, usually, with sparse pecks and tiny sucks. Each time that Richie does this with him, Eddie’s astounded at the fact he doesn’t ask for it more often. _A handjob but better!_ is how Richie describes it, particularly to their friends when he’s showing off, calling the rest of them virgins. 

Richie palms the side of his thigh until Eddie bends his knee, the sole of his foot flat on the bedsheets. His head drops back as Richie’s drops forwards, engulfing his dick in the idyllic warmth of his mouth and throat. His nose nestles against the groomed hair at his skin. He slips off after a couple of seconds, leaving him cold, and the look that he gives him after inevitably seeing Eddie’s immediate pout is _rude._

“¿ _Te gusta eso?”_ Richie whispers, and it’s with such a stupid grin that it shouldn’t be seductive at _all._ But Christ, there’s something about the way that the foreign words roll off his tongue.

“I don’t know what that means,” Eddie breathes. “But please, _please,_ do that again.”

Richie complies gladly, sinking back down and rolling Eddie’s balls in his hand simultaneously. Eddie’s toes curl so much so that it almost sends a cramp through his feet. There’s a thrumming sensation in his groin that he’s worried will trigger an orgasm far too soon — Was he that sensitive? Surely not. Christ.

The fingers of his spare hand probe lower and he strokes over the budding opening that he’s become so acquainted with recently. Fingering Eddie has become one of Richie’s favourite activities since their first delve into it, and Eddie can’t begin to claim that he’s complaining about it. The thought of his fingers inside him is one that never fails to have his heart racing, palms sweating. The idea that he’d soon have more than that, have his cock inside him, fucking him, going deeper than either of them have before — it makes him rock upwards, arching into Richie’s mouth, his hands fisting the sheets and the locks of hair that are bobbing up and down at his crotch. 

“Jesus,” Eddie moans. “Jesus, Rich. My – My bag, please. There’s — Things in there.”

A raised eyebrow is the response. Eddie can read it. 

“Lube,” he clarifies. 

Richie slides off of his dick with an exaggerated _pop!_ noise, using his hand to jerk slowly in the absence of his mouth. The hand that had been occupied with his rear now extends towards Eddie’s backpack, unzipping it awkwardly, reaching in and rummaging around blindly. He presses soft kisses along his thigh. 

He doesn’t pull out the lube. In his hand is the familiar box of condoms, unopened still. Eddie has never seen a face so smug in his life. 

“Were you _planning_ this, Mr Kaspbrak?” he asks, and holds the box to his chest. “I believe this is often referred to as _premeditated murder._ ”

“Oh, shut up,” he groans, placing his hands over his face. 

“Are they flavoured? Can I put one in my mouth?”

“Only if you want to choke on it. So, be my guest.”

“It _is_ premeditated murder!” he exclaims, and whether it’s on purpose or not, Eddie’s not sure, but Richie’s grasp tightens and he slides his thumb over the slit at his head. Eddie releases an involuntary gasp to which Richie has no reaction but a quirk of the corner of his mouth. Definitely on purpose. 

“Fuck you,” he pants, lightly kicking him in the leg. 

“It seems like that was your intention! I didn’t know we were doing it _that_ way around, or I would have prepared. These are far too small for me. I need XXL condoms for my magnum horse dong.”

“You do _not —_ Wait, are you — Are you saying I have a small dick?”

Richie’s grip jerks once more. He smiles. “It’s okay. It’s proportional.”

“ _Fuck_ you!” he says, and there’s bite but he’s smiling, and Richie’s smiling back, and then he’s placing the condoms beside them and actually retrieving the lube, this time.

“Can you reach those pillows?” he asks, nodding in the direction of the headboard. “Put one under your head, and one under your lower back.”

“Bossy,” he says in return but does as he says regardless. Richie helps him with the one beneath his back. Eddie’s never felt more exposed than in this position, underwear now around his knees and legs parted with Richie between them, staring down at him like a starving man, at his wet, hard dick and the rest of his naked body laid out like a buffet. 

“ _Hermoso,”_ Richie purrs, squeezing out some of the lubricant onto his fingers that are regretfully removed from his dick. He proceeds to rub them together, a technique he’d picked up since Eddie’s first dramatic reaction to the cold, and then places them back to his dick. 

The continuous improvement of smooth tugs are what almost push him over the edge again, which is hardly helped by the way in which Richie lowers his head, below his dick, paying it no mind, but lapping and sucking at his sac instead. It’s not a place that Eddie can say that he’s thoroughly explored sexually himself, tending to keep to the traditional tug-and-go of his cock whilst masturbating (until recent _deeper_ developments), but Jesus _Christ_ , whenever Richie pays them attention it’s like discovering a new paradise. 

And then he stops short. Leaves Eddie panting. 

“Eddie?” he says, and Eddie opens his eyes, hadn’t even realised that they’d been closed in the first place. “Can I put my mouth on you?”

Eddie parts his lips to answer _what the fuck, yes, your mouth was literally just on me_ before he realises what he means. He nods mutely, parting his legs a little more so, giving him better access, taking a long, deep breath to prepare himself. 

Nothing could prepare him. It’s not like fingers. Nothing like fingers. 

Richie’s tongue licks a slick line down from his balls, over his perineum, to his entrance, where he and his tongue remain. There’s a moment of hesitation before he kisses it as though one would kiss another’s mouth, and then he’s using his sticky fingers to spread Eddie’s cheeks apart, pressing his face deep against him. His tongue applies an attractive pressure against the hole, pushing in but not yet breaching the borders of his body. 

Eddie throws his legs over his boyfriend’s shoulders as he allows the shudders of his pleasure seep through his body and express themselves in the form of excitable whines and whimpers. It’s an odd sensation, odd in the manner of being so _new,_ and familiar then in the manner of reminiscing of using his fingers for the first time. 

No, nothing could prepare him for this. 

It’s as sweet on the outside as it is when Richie tenses his moist muscle and pushes inside. He licks him open with long, deep strokes, his lips puckering and providing suction for every spare moment that there is. Eddie openly moans at each singular movement, becoming a mess, a puddle, numb bones and tingling skin. He revels even in the brief pain of Richie’s fingernails digging into his cheeks as he grabs hold of them for leverage, allowing an outlet for it in the form of tugging on his boyfriend’s hair in encouragement and panting soft, excessive, _yes, yes, oh, God, yes!_

The sounds are downright pornographic. Eddie can hear each wet kiss underneath the cascade of his own bumbling wishes and ecstatic exclamatives. He hopes the walls are thick. The walls better be thick. He’s not going to be able to face a single soul when tomorrow comes if they’re not thick. If they’re not, then it’ll be a godsend that they’re leaving tomorrow, checking out of this hotel that will stay with both of them for the rest of their lives. 

He’s so enthusiastic about it. Why is he so enthusiastic about it? He’s tonguing Eddie’s ass like it’s doing something for him as well and oh, _God,_ if that’s the truth, then that’s the hottest fucking thing that Eddie’s ever discovered in his life. He gets off on fingering him, Eddie knows that, so, maybe, perhaps —

The palm on his right asscheek is removed and he sucks in a harsh breath when there’s a finger prodding at his hole alongside his tongue, there, pushing in, stretching him further and diving deeper inside of him. The saliva from his mouth and the lube from his finger makes Eddie feel soaking wet, as if it’s natural, and it makes him rock back against the appendages, begging for more without words. Richie listens. He removes his tongue for but a second, entering in its wake a second finger that instills in Eddie the familiar and welcomed burn of the stretch. He scissors his fingers once they’re buried inside of him and he pushes his tongue in between them. A moment of pure stillness is followed by all three muscles fucking into him, filling him, making Eddie believe in Heaven and angels. 

“Rich — _Please —”_ he begs, not knowing what he’s asking for, words tumbling out without substance. “God — Fuck — Yes, yes, there, you — Fuck — Tongue — _Yes — Rich — Richie —!”_

He might as well be deaf. Richie continues what he’s doing as though Eddie’s not saying a word to him, moving his fingers in this direction and that as if he’s exploring for new pressure points, new ways to make him break. Eddie’s half-broken already. His heart is beating so hard that he can hear it literally pounding in his ears and he wouldn’t be surprised if Richie could _feel_ it through his body, an open call, letting him know his ardour. His cock should be enough for that, though, standing up and alert like a weeping soldier, overwhelmed with the fluid leaking from the top, flushed red all over. Richie still has his glasses on, and there’s even some of Eddie’s precum on them, now, staining the lenses, as well as smeared saliva. But he can still see. He wants Richie to see him.

“Rich,” he says, voice husky, tugging hard on his hair. “Richie — Richie —” Because there’s little else to say, and his hips are rocking against Richie’s face, doing work himself now, grinding back, and you’d think that Richie was simply passive by his verve.

But then it’s stopping. It’s stopping and Richie is withdrawing his tongue and mouth and then his fingers and it leaves Eddie feeling incredibly cold and empty in a way that he quickly discovers he does _not_ appreciate. His arms outstretched, he cups his boyfriend’s face gently, fingers beneath the arms of his glasses, pulling him close. 

“Holy shit,” Richie is whispering, pressing their foreheads together, and Eddie is aiming for a kiss before Richie gently stops him in his path. “I wanna kiss you so bad, baby, so fucking bad, but you told me that you don’t wanna kiss me after my mouth has been on your ass, and, well, unless you just missed the past ten minutes, well—”

“Shut up,” Eddie says. “Bag — Pass me my bag.”

Richie does as he’s instructed and Eddie scrambles around until he acquires the almost empty tub of chewing gum. He opens it and retrieves two of them, taking them and shoving them into Richie’s mouth, holding his palm over his lips. He knows that it won’t do anything but make his breath smell better, won’t realistically make it any cleaner or more hygienic, but (even though Eddie _knows_ that he’s clean down there, he’d _just_ gotten out of the shower) he needs something to make it better, and he’s definitely not about to let either of them move from this bed. Not right now. Maybe not ever.

As Richie chews them, Eddie leans forward and kisses him again, a bead of sweat slipping down from his forehead and trickling threateningly close to his lips before Richie’s clean hand is there, flattening it, caressing his cheek. He can taste a mix of his own musk and now mint, and he doesn’t recoil, doesn’t flip, as distasteful as he may find it. It’s Richie. It’s him and Richie. _Anything if it’s Richie._

He moans and shivers with the pleasure of it, his hands now slipping down to shove down Richie’s trousers and underwear, and Richie lets him, helps him do it. They manage to blindly collaborate to get both articles of clothing down his thighs, and Eddie clasps his hand around his erection as soon as it’s free. An inescapable intimacy envelopes the both of them, rooted in their kiss, ardour bleeding from lip to lip, tongue to tongue. Richie’s dick is hot in his hand, hot as he jerks it in his grip, brushing his thumb over its head. 

“Can I do it?” Richie asks, and his glasses are slipping down the bridge of his nose, humidity thick in the air. “Are you ready?”

Eddie nods, once, twice, three times, and he says, “Please.”

Richie reaches over and grabs the box of condoms, ripping it open and pulling out a strip of the silver wrapped rubbers. Eddie continues to stroke him as he watches Richie separate one from the rest and rip it open with his teeth, making eye contact, clearly attempting to look seductive. It just makes Eddie laugh. 

“I’ve only ever done this with a banana in health class,” Richie warns him, placing the rolled up condom onto the head of his dick and waiting until Eddie’s hand is out of the way to roll it down. It surprisingly doesn’t rip, and Richie’s grin of triumph makes want to Eddie kiss him again. So he does. And then he lays down again, pillows in appropriate places, and spreads his legs nice and wide. Richie’s hands are on the bottle of lube again, lathering up his dick and dribbling some onto Eddie’s ass, too, just for good measure. 

“Rich?” he says, holding out a hand. He’s not entirely sure why. It’s almost an instinct. He wants to hold his hand. Some form of reliance, comfort. _Hold me._

Richie takes it, pressing a soft kiss to Eddie’s knuckles before linking their fingers and leaving them there at Eddie’s side. He uses his other hand to grab at himself, using it to direct his erection forwards until the tip of it is pressing against his entrance. Waiting. 

“You’re so gorgeous,” Richie’s whispering. He squeezes his hand. Eddie squeezes back. “You fucking astound me, Eds.”

“And you, me,” Eddie whispers straight back. His free palm caresses the side of Richie’s face, fingers delving into his hair. “I — I think, sometimes, I need my inhaler when I look at you,” he admits, face growing impossibly hotter. “But you breathe into me, anyway. And you — You just —”

Richie nods, kisses him again gently. “I know. Me too. Not the inhaler part, but —”

“Rich,” he breathes. “Get inside me, please.”

He freezes. And then, “Yeah?”

“Yeah. Yes. Please.”

Richie takes one deep breath, nodding again, mostly to himself, it seems, and he pushes forwards. Eddie gasps, squeezing Richie’s hands in a death-grip — it’s nothing like fingers, no, and yet certainly nothing like a tongue either — new, obstructing, huge in comparison to anything else that he’s had stretching him out. He squeezes his eyes shut tight and grunts in pain, his fingers curling against Richie’s cheek. 

“Shit,” Richie says, and his breathing has become fast. “Do you — Do you want me to pull out?”

Eddie shakes his head quickly. “No. Don’t stop. _Don’t_ stop. Just – Just, slowly. It’s – It’s your – Shit, you’re _big._ ”

“Fuck.” Richie’s hips move forward a little, sheathing himself deeper inside Eddie, ever so slightly. “I’m gonna — I’m gonna put that on my _Wikipedia_ page.”

“For when you’re a world famous comedian?” Eddie chokes out. 

“You bet,” he says with strain, sliding in one more inch. “And you’re my — my adorable house-husband, who stays at home to cook and watch my _Netflix_ specials.”

Eddie’s laugh is breathless, and he knows that his nails are digging into Richie’s hand and he’s reminded, inexplicably (and rather appropriately) of a husband and wife in the hospital, waiting for their newborn. He says, “Back to the — the marriage thing, huh?”

Richie smiles, says, “Can you blame me?” and bottoms out, his hip bones flushed against Eddie’s ass. His chest is heaving so much that Eddie’s slightly concerned, until he realises that his own is doing the same, and they’re both equally as thrilled. Richie lifts Eddie’s hand to kiss it again, both of them paused and panting for the time being, allowing the sensations to sink in.

Eddie is only able to describe the insurmountable feeling as thoroughly _full_. It’s impossible to say anything else. He’s still trying to decide whether or not it’s predominantly a good or bad feeling, the pain from the stretch still stinging tears into his eyes, but he knows that it’ll ease soon. Experience can lead him to the conclusion that it will be mystifyingly gratifying soon enough, just like how he becomes a mess for Richie’s fingers. 

“You alright?” Richie’s voice hums, words floating to Eddie’s ears like clouds. 

“Mmm,” he murmurs in response. “Just… Give me a second.”

“Of course,” he says, though Eddie can easily tell that he wants to move, wants to start thrusting, so used to being able to do whatever he needs to acquire pleasure that it’s torturous for him to pause when he’s so close to it. But he stays still. For him. 

Eddie shifts his hips, glad for the pillow beneath his lower back, and tries to accustom himself to the feeling. The pain is easing now, as he gets used to it, and he’s pretty sure that he knows something that could make it feel better. 

“Touch me,” he requests, stroking his thumb over Richie’s cheekbone. He licks his lips at the same time as he does. “Please.”

“Don’t have to ask me twice,” he declares, because it’s Richie, and he follows up on the promise. He reaches down, using the same hand that had just directed his own erection inside of him, and grabs hold of Eddie’s, gently tugging at it once again. He’d been right. It does help.

He begins to rock his body with Richie’s jerks, almost on impulse, pushing himself back onto his boyfriend’s dick. Richie’s reaction isn’t the most subtle. He releases a moan so sudden that it almost shocks him, and as he lifts Eddie’s hand to kiss it again, he keeps it there, mumbling curses against his knuckles.

“Is it good?” Eddie asks him quietly. 

“Christ,” he replies. “Yes. Yes. It’s so good.”

“Better than my mouth?”

Richie chuckles. “I never thought that I’d be saying _anything_ is better than your mouth, baby, but — but, shit. Yes. You’re so fucking tight.”

That was something that Eddie thought was only said in porn. He frowns. “Am— Am I?”

“Yes,” he breathes. “So tight. _So_ fucking hot. It’s like a fucking sexy glove. You’re a sexy glove.”

“Don’t — That’s such a weird fucking thing to say right now.”

A beat. “Should I say it in Spanish instead?”

Another. “Yes.”

Richie grins, kisses his knuckles again. “ _Mi guante caliente.”_

Eddie can’t help but laugh at it. At him. With him. “You, uh,” he says, voice breaking. “You can move. If you’re ready.”

“If _I’m_ ready?” he asks. “I think you’re more important here.”

“No,” he says at once. “You are, too. Both of us.”

Richie stares at him for a moment, stars in his eyes again, and he nods. “I’m ready.”

Eddie bites his lip. “Me too.”

Richie draws his hips out, hissing as he does so, and he jerks his hand over Eddie’s dick as he pushes himself back inside him. Eddie almost can’t comprehend the jolt that shoots through him from both angles, and he has to pull his hand down from cupping Richie’s face to cover his mouth. The gasp that he releases is downright lewd, but he can’t help it, and can’t help it when he continues to release these small noises, shuddering at the way that Richie’s palming at his dick. 

And then it seems like Richie’s finally taking his own pleasure, waiting for a second before he’s pulling out, then pushing in, and out and in, again, though slowly, keeping his gaze firmly on Eddie’s face, and Eddie knows it’s so he can catch the slightest grimace of discomfort if it comes. It won’t. In fact, Eddie’s feeling quite the opposite of discomfort now that Richie’s establishing a rhythmic pace. 

Richie’s fingers slide down now, from the head of his cock down to his perineum, and then traces over the part of Eddie’s body that’s stretched out around him. He presses his thumb to the place where they’re so connected; where they’re one. He applies a pressure there that’s oddly satisfying, and he wonders whether or not Richie can feel himself through the barrier of the skin, feel himself moving in and out. 

“Do you — Does it feel good?” Richie asks him, and his voice breaks as he does, and Eddie can’t trust himself to speak so he just nods fervently. Richie says, “Good. _Good._ I don’t — I really don’t think this is gonna last long.”

But Eddie could stay like this for a thousand years more. He shifts his position once more and then — _then —_ he feels just what he’d been anticipating, what he’d been waiting for so desperately, needing, aching for — and he can’t hide it, can’t even begin to think about answering him, because his throat is obstructed by his heart and all that’s leaking out of his mouth is a litany of choked approval. His head falls back and his hips convulse once, twice, three times. His bottom lip feels raw from his teeth digging into it and he knows at once that Richie’s caught on, because he pauses before re-performing the same move, the same thrust. Eddie shouts a moan on impulse, hand slamming down to the sheets to twist them into his grasp; something to use for some kind of grip on reality. 

“ _Rich —”_ he whimpers. His toes are curled so painfully tight and he’s beginning to think that his bottom lip may be bleeding. 

“There?” Richie purrs pointlessly. “You like it there, huh? That’s the money shot?”

Eddie releases whines of, “ _Yes, yes, yes,”_ and “ _Please, Rich, please,”_ and Richie sweetly complies, pressing in slowly once again until Eddie whines and squeezes his hand impossibly tighter. 

“Can I go faster?” he asks, a hint of desperation seeping through his voice like the sweat that’s rolling off of both of them. 

“Yes,” Eddie answers, a ghost of a whisper. His mouth feels ridden with saliva but his throat so dry; when he swallows it turns only into another choked moan. “Yes, Rich, _please.”_ And you can hear the hoarseness in his voice, one that he’s sure is only going to be worse tomorrow, one that he’s going to have to think up an explanation for, but —

But it’s so difficult to think of anything other than Richie when he’s staring down at him like this, eyes half lidded and half out of focus, like his natural instinct is to close his eyes and get lost in the pleasure, but he doesn’t want to let Eddie out of his sight, doesn’t want to let his sight slip through — he wants to remember. Just like how Eddie wants to remember this, curly hair falling around his forehead and some strands getting sticky with sweat; his lips parted so as to allow heavy breaths and eager moans to slip from between them. The front of his torso contracting with each thrust, using the muscles in his abdomen, making it look defined as well as shiny. The way his gaze travels over Eddie’s body, from his face to his cock and then below, appreciative, unbelieving, wholeheartedly overwhelmed. He’s watching their conjoinment closely, seemingly staring at his dick sliding in and out of him, mesmerised, in awe.

And then he begins to pick up his pace, and pleasure sings through Eddie like a choir, or a divine opera that brings people to tears. It doesn’t feel of this world. It feels seraphic and blasphemous all at the same time. Richie is chorusing pleasure as well, pumping into Eddie the same way he would do his own fist, fast and thorough, and hitting Eddie’s prostate nearly every single time he dives back inside. 

“Oh, God,” he says, like he’s sharing Eddie’s consciousness. “I’m — I’m _inside_ you, oh, God…”

_Catch up,_ Eddie wants to quip, _You have been for quite a while, now,_ but he doesn’t, because he seems to have forgotten all sense of vocabulary that doesn’t involve positive synonyms of _yes_ and the man’s name (which, to Eddie at this moment, _God_ is a synonym of as well). And so he hums wildly in agreement, lifting his hips so that Richie can get even deeper — inside him.

“Fuck — the amount of times I’ve d– dreamt of this, Eds,” he groans. Eddie can start to hear the steady rhythm of skin slapping against skin behind his words. “Shit, you’ve got me — fucking stuttering. I feel like B- B- Bill —”

“ _Don’t_ talk about Bill right now,” Eddie whines, shooting him a glare, just hearing the name giving him juxtaposing shudders to his otherwise excitable ones.

“ _Mmf —_ Sorry — Fuck. Thought about doing this with you for so damn long… This is _literally_ a dream come true, Eds —”

“I know,” Eddie replies, because he does. “Me too — I – I’ve needed this.”

Richie slides his free hand to the dip between his hip and his thigh and holds on there, establishing a firm grip before he uses it as a grounding leverage, pulling Eddie in to meet each of his thrusts. Eddie revels in it, letting shameless moans escape from his mouth as each bout of rapture shoots its way all over his body; through his shaking legs to his dizzy head. Fingers had never felt this good. _Never._

It feels like Richie knows him better than he knows himself, body and mind. Their raw intimacy will never cease to amaze Eddie, even now, when anybody else could call this just _sex_ and Eddie knows that it’s more than that. Eons more. _Love-making._ That’s what this is. And Eddie might — Eddie _does —_ and Richie probably —

Eddie extends his arm upwards and grabs the back of Richie’s neck, pulling him down without a word to kiss him deeply. From the very moment that their lips meld once again it sends electricity through him, the act of being kissed whilst being made love to, connected to a Richie from every point of his body. He feels Richie lick away the beading of sweat at his upper lip and he can taste it, then, when he licks into his mouth, salty and minty still. His dick is leaking where it’s trapped between their two slick bodies and Eddie’s frankly astounded at the fact that he hasn’t cum already. He thinks that the only thing holding him back is the fact that neither of them have been touching him there, and he thinks that Richie’s done that on purpose, too. Neither of them want this to end quickly. Perhaps not at all. 

Richie, though? Eddie’s flabbergasted at the fact that he’s still going. Eddie remembers the very first time that he took the boy into his mouth, sank to his knees on the dirty, dusty ground of the clubhouse and had his first taste of him, _loving_ it. 

And then, “Okay — Okay, wait —” Richie says, breath hot against Eddie’s mouth. “Wait — I’m gonna — I’m close.” Maybe he _can_ read Eddie’s mind?

“Okay,” Eddie says, nodding. “It’s okay, I – You don’t have to stop yourself.”

“I’m not.” Even though he has stopped moving, and Eddie aches at the now constant pressure against his prostate. 

Eddie kisses him again. “Well,” he says. “Can I ride you, then?”

He watches the very moment that Richie’s pupils blow wide enough that the ring of colour around it becomes just barely a slit. He hears the sharp intake of breath from him before Richie responds with a desperate “Oh, God, _please,”_ and rekindles their sweet kiss. 

Eddie holds onto him with his one hand as Richie pulls him up, sitting back on his ankles and hugging Eddie to him, slick chest to slick chest. Eddie’s practically sitting on him now, sitting on his legs and on his dick. His breath comes in short bursts as he regains his balance and his head. However they managed not to break the kiss during their repositioning is beyond him, and the fact that Richie had elected to do it whilst _still inside of him_ isn’t something that Eddie would encourage to do again. It would have been a bit of a mood killer if he’d snapped something.

“Lay back,” Eddie tells him, sliding a hand down to his chest, stroking his thumb over his nipple and watching him gulp. “I want to do it. Let me do it.”

Richie releases a shaky breath, stretches out his legs, and does as Eddie tells him. He smiles when Eddie reaches back to give him the pillow to rest under his head, kisses his knuckles again. 

“I just want you to know,” he says, settling his hand onto Eddie’s hips as he sits over him, “This is my biggest fantasy ever, coming to life.”

“Mine, too,” Eddie breathes. “I’ve thought about getting you inside me since I was like, fucking, thirteen. _God.”_

“ _Fucking same —_ Oh, please move, honey —” he pants, arching his hips up into him. Eddie grins, lifts himself slowly before sinking back down so he’s sitting flush against his skin again, his dick back inside him, deeper now, impossibly. From this angle, he’s not instilling any pressure against his prostate anymore, but Eddie doesn’t mind for now. He likes the feeling of Richie inside him far more than he’d anticipated, so much so that he doesn’t even need anything extra.

Slowly, he establishes a pace similar to what Richie’s had been, bouncing up and down on his dick, the both of them moaning with each time that it sinks deep inside him. Richie’s face is a treasure. His glasses have never been dirtier than this moment, but he’s gazing at Eddie as though he’s wearing a halo and wings, a permanent smile sitting on his face. 

Richie’s hips seem to have a mind of their own. Each time Eddie rises off of them, they attempt to follow, desperate to stay deep inside of him. Eddie doesn’t mind, laughing with Richie as he apologises each time. But one particular thrust upwards, and —

“ _Fuck!”_ Eddie exclaims, head thrown backwards yet again. _There it is,_ he thinks, and pauses before settling himself back down once again, using that same angle, and again he cries, “Fuck!”

“Yeah?” Richie hums, licking his lips at Eddie’s reaction. “Yeah?”

“Yeah,” he replies breathily. His own hips are moving of their own accord now, rolling down against him, releasing breathy “ _Yeah, yeah, yeah”s_ into the thick, hot air between them. He announces long moans with each time Richie’s cock hits his prostate now, and when he opens his eyes again, it’s to see Richie watching his dick between them like a hawk. Licking his lips again. Both of their palms are so slick with sweat, they might as well be soaking them in water.

“Can I touch you?” Richie asks before Eddie can offer, and Eddie just fervently nods his head. 

When he touches him again, even this hand sticky with lube and sweat, Eddie loses his mind. He sees actual fireworks — large explosions ringing in his ears that might just be their combined breaths and whines, and his knees buckle, and everything is Richie. In his sight is Richie, and in his ears is Richie, and in his nose is Richie, and in his fucking ass is Richie, and — 

“God, I love you,” Eddie hears Richie say, for the very first time, and it’s too much. Too much. God. Oh, God. 

His eyes are stinging and his cheeks feel wet. He gazes at Richie with blurry awe, and as he feels the next brush of pleasure, it draws from him a broken sob, and he’s crying, he’s crying, and Richie’s looking at him with such concern, so he smiles through his tears to try and communicate to him that he’s okay —

“I love you,” Eddie gasps back, lifting their joined hands to wipe his eyes. “I don’t know why I’m — why I’m crying.” 

Richie helps him through the thrusts and continues to palm his erection, and then he sits up again, pressing their wet foreheads together, kissing him, holding him. It doesn’t help his tears. He sniffles as he tells him again, “I love you,” and Richie says it back, and more tears spill. “I think I’m crying because of that.”

“In a good way, I hope,” Richie says, laugh evident in his tone. “It’s a bit too late now if you’re having regrets. You’re never going to get rid of me now.”

Eddie chokes out a wet chuckle, one that he can’t seem to end until another moan comes and cuts it off. He rolls his hips once before before he pauses, gasps, says, “You love me.”

“I love you,” Richie affirms, and his hand jerks at Eddie’s dick faster, rocking back up into him at Eddie’s rest. “Come here,” he hums, then presses a kiss to his jaw to get him to look at him again. “I want — I want to kiss you when I cum.”

“Because you – Because you love me?” Eddie asks, half teasing. 

“Mm, yeah. And ‘cause I know you love me.” He grins. “Fuck. _Fuck._ Eddie Kaspbrak loves me — I’m the fucking luckiest man on Earth.”

Eddie touches him wherever he can reach, leaving their other hands entwined, rubbing all over his chest, latching onto his hair. When he begins to bounce on his erection again (and he can _feel_ that one vein that he likes sliding against his inner walls— _holy shit),_ the eye contact that the two of them make is so raw and filled to the brim with passion ( _like him)_ that that _alone_ could have pushed him over the edge. He’s forgotten how to blink. Both of them have. That’s what it feels like. Eddie’s knuckles are white on Richie’s skin. 

Their breath is mingled, acting as one, and Eddie knows that it’s not healthy. He’s practically breathing in Richie’s homemade CO2 right now, right? And that’s bad, that’s — carbon dioxide can cause nausea and vomiting, collapse, convulsions, coma and death, and that’s the last thing that Eddie needs right now, to die. He’s quite happy right now, thank you very much. He doesn’t want to die. He wants to live like this for the rest of eternity, wrapped up in Richie’s warmth with a Richie’s eternity inside of him. 

Eddie can feel it coming a mile off. There’s a rigidity in his bones that alerts him and he feels the familiar tightening in his balls, and if Richie keeps touching him like that… He sucks in a gasp and breaks the constant eye contact only for a second to flicker his gaze down to Richie’s lips, and then back up again. Richie knows. He’s not sure how the hell he knows, but he does. Perhaps he can sense it. Maybe feel it. Maybe it’s because he’s subconsciously tightening around him, or maybe it’s because of the further tears that are slipping out from his ducts, sliding down his cheeks before Richie kisses them away. Before he kisses him. He tastes salty again. But it’s so sweet. _So sweet._

He orgasms with Richie’s lips on his when Richie flicks his wrist in such a perfectly simple manner, splashing Richie’s chest and stomach with his cum and dribbling it over his fingers. He moans against Richie’s tongue as it slides into his mouth and uses his very last bouts of strength to squat himself up, down, up, down, _up, down,_ just to make it the best that he can for Richie. 

Richie appreciates it, too, he can tell, because a second later, he’s moaning into Eddie’s mouth just the same. His hips convulse against Eddie’s and he slides his semen-covered hand up to Eddie’s neck, smoothing it, and then directs it to his face, caressing his cheek with such ardour and softness. His tears spill onto his hand, and so Richie has all kinds of Eddie’s fluids on him — probably even his blood in his mouth, judging by how he’d ripped his own bottom lip to shreds in the heat of the moment. 

They rock together for an undefined amount of time longer. Eddie’s unsure whether or not it’s seconds or minutes or perhaps even hours. What defines a moment of clarity and peace, he wonders? A moment, at all? How does a moment last forever? 

They kiss for longer than it takes for them to come down from their high. Richie’s lips taste happy. Content. Richie’s lips are as raw as his are. Over-kissed. Just kissed enough. Not kissed enough. So he keeps kissing him. Kisses and kisses and kisses and smiles and love and they’re in love — it’s out in the open now, finally spoken. He’s still crying, a little bit. He doesn’t even feel that embarrassed about it, though he’s sure that’ll probably change in the morning. He still feels good, too, and he’s sure that’ll change in the morning as well, given Richie’s girth and the way his legs have been bending and stretching. An ache will be prominent. Maybe welcome. 

But he’ll think about tomorrow, tomorrow. For now, he’s content to sit here, feel the grins on their lips and the tranquility of Richie softening inside of him. Then the two of them hug, fall back onto the bed together, embraced. If there’s pillow talk involved in the aftermath, Eddie won’t remember it. He’s too focused on the way that Richie’s looking at him, stroking his cheekbone, still giving him pecks at every silence that they encounter. 

Eddie thinks this is Heaven. He falls asleep still holding Richie’s hand. 

*

“Oh my fucking God,” Eddie groans as soon as he wakes, screwing his eyes shut tight before opening them to the morning sunlight. Richie’s still asleep despite his exclamation, glasses pressing a dark red mark to the side of his nose. He’s drooling. His hand is heavy on the side of Eddie’s neck, and Eddie can feel that it’s still sticky, barely moist. 

He feels disgusting. He’s sticky literally all over. His ass is aching and his legs are too, but he can’t say that he didn’t see that coming (he did). 

“Ew,” he says with a shudder, lifting Richie’s hand off of his neck, staring at his liquid remnants dried to his skin. “Gross.”

“Mm,” Richie hums, taking a deep, deep breath. He rolls over a little bit and Eddie can see the same liquid glistening in the light all over the front of his torso. “Eds?”

“Hey,” Eddie murmurs. “Good morning.”

“Goob morbib…” Richie replies lazily. He stretches his arms above his head with a Cheshire grin, releasing a moan of content.

“Goob morbib to you, too,” he says. “We are fucking disgusting.”

“We are?” he asks, as if he’s not covered in Eddie’s cum. “I, for one, feel the best that I ever have done in my _life._ ”

“I wonder why,” he chuckles. 

“You _do?_ I don’t. I think it’s quite clear.” He rolls over once again, pressing a long kiss to his mouth. “You love me.”

“Blegh!” Eddie exclaims, pulling away from him. “Not with that morning breath.”

“What morning breath? This morning breath?” Richie asks, and he opens his mouth wide to breathe onto his face. “This morning breath is the aftermath of your ass.”

Eddie can’t help but quirk a smile. “I can’t believe I let you kiss me after you did that.”

“I can’t either. Boy, am I glad you did, though.” He presses a kiss to his forehead. “You know why you let me?”

He rolls his eyes. “Why?”

“Because you _love_ me.”

“You say that as if you don’t love me right back.”

“No, I most certainly do not,” he says. “I love you, Edwin Kaspbrak.”

“That’s not my name. Doesn’t count.”

“I love you, Edgar Kaspbrak.”

“Nope.”

“I love you, Edmund Kaspbrak.” 

“Starting to believe you’re just lying to me, having affairs with all of these other men.”

“I’m kidding, I’m kidding,” he tells him fondly, pressing a kiss to the upturned corner of Eddie’s mouth. “Now, why don’t you and I get ourselves out of this bed… I’ll carry you into the bathroom… And we can clean ourselves whilst getting even more dirty.” He bites his lip, gaze flickering from eye to eye. “What do you say, Edith?”

Eddie bursts out laughing against his will, rolling on top of him, uncaring of any filth between them. They don’t get out of bed for a while.

*

They check out of the hotel at twelve and hold hands all the way back to the car. The woman behind the desk offers them help to bring their bags to the car but they tell her with wide smiles that they can handle it. And they can. They only have two backpacks. 

Getting into the car is one of the more difficult things that Eddie has to do. It’s a slap in the face of reality and having to go back to it. They drive a little bit around the beautiful seaside town whilst ignoring the fact that they have to start heading home at some point. Eddie snaps a couple of photos as they regretfully escape, a sad selfie of the two of them pouting with a blurry distant view of the bay in the background. 

**loserzz**

**Eddie (12:48):** **_[1 IMAGE ATTACHED]_ **

**Eddie (12:48):** _see you guys soon i guess. ):_

**Bev (12:48):** _see you! we missed you!_

**Ben (12:49):** _Cheer up, boys:)_

**Eddie (12:49):** _can’t cheer up we’re leaving paradise. nothing compared to potential europe trip though bev._

**Ben (12:49):** _Derry isn’t paradise, but it’ll be nice to see you guys. :)_

**Stan (12:50):** _stay there /:_

**Bev (12:50):** _we can celebrate when you guys come back!_

**Bev (12:50):** _can we all meet in the clubhouse at six?_

**Bev (12:51):** _or do you two think you’ll need time to recover?_

**Stan (12:51):** _“recover”_

**Eddie (12:51):** _-.-_

**Eddie (12:51):** _we can probably meet you guys. i need a break from richie. it’s been so long since normal human contact._

**Stan (12:53):** _i can come_

**Ben (12:53):** _Me too._

**Bev (12:53):** _brilliant :)))))))_

**Bev (12:53):** _Mike? Bill?_

**Stan (12:54):** _mike is currently afk_

**Stan (12:54):** _he has become addicted to wordscapes_

**Bev (12:54):** _mike emergency!!!!!!!!!!!!!_

**Mike (12:56):** _sorry! Sure I can probably make it.(:_

**Bev (12:57):** _brilliant :) anywhere know where bill is?_

**Ben (12:57):** _Nope._

**Eddie (12:58):** _we’ll see you guys then — maybe bill too?_

**Bev (12:59):** _he’ll come!_

  
  


Eddie smiles down at his phone and plugs it into the aux, taking a B-like straight to their playlist. He sets it onto shuffle and snorts when Richie cheers at the Avril Lavigne song that comes on. 

“It’s you,” he tells him. “You’re the skater boy!”

“But that doesn’t make sense, it literally doesn’t make sense.”

“It does!”

“That means you reject me!”

“Absolutely not! Here, listen to this part, here… I’m the one that’s singing —” and he starts singing — “ _Sorry, girl, but you missed out_

_Well, tough luck, that boy's mine now_

_We are more than just good friends —”_

“Okay, okay, well, it didn’t make sense when you put it in, and I still don’t think it does now.”

“Whatever you say,” he tells him with a smirk. There’s a second or two when the song is dying, and then he says, “Wait. Scroll down to the bottom, would you? I added a song this morning that you might wanna see.”

Eddie does so, scrolls down to the most recently added song in the playlist. He stares at it for a moment, recollects the lyrics in his mind and then thinks of the night that they shared before. He looks up at him, shakes his head, says, “You think you’re _hilarious!”_ and selects it to play, anyway.

*

“Mike and Stan are already there!” Bev tells them as they maneuver through the long grass and branches. “Stan acts tough, but he’s gonna be happy to see you guys. It’s been weird not having you in Derry.”

“Yeah,” Ben agrees. “I know we don’t see each other everyday anyway, but… I know what you mean, Beverly.”

“M- Me too,” Bill says. “When – When there’s only seven c- cool people in Derry, it’s pretty noticeable when it’s c- cut down.”

“My, my!” Richie exclaims. “I didn’t know you felt that way about me, Bill… I’m blushing. Look, Eds, look at my cheeks!”

“Shut up,” Eddie says, pinching his cheek. “You’re not funny.”

“You found me _hilarious_ when we were alone! This is slander!”

“I – I take it back,” Bill sighs. “There’s only s- six cool people.”

“Oh,” Richie hums. “Sorry, Eds. Doesn’t look like you made the cut.”

They all scuffle and laugh for a bit before falling into a comfortable silence for the remainder of the walk. There’s a weird noise or two from the trees and bushes that makes Eddie giggle and there’s a quiet hum of Ben telling Bill about different types of flowers that they pass by, but other than that, it’s a content quiet. 

As they approach the clubhouse, a silence falls completely. The five of them experience in unison as they step into the familiar clearing an unsettling unease at the sight of the open trapdoor. They _never_ leave it open, not one of them. Not even when they’re expecting the others. It’s too dangerous, especially when there’s people like Bowers about. Nothing is worth risking their safe haven.

“Why is it open?” Beverly whispers, circling the open hatch, trying to look inside. She can’t seem to see anything. 

The boys all frown, shrug in shared confusion, and Richie puts his hand on Bev’s shoulder gently, urging her back. 

“I’ll go in,” he whispers back. “I’ll see if anyone else is in there.”

“Are you kidding?” Eddie says, trying to keep quiet (it works, somehow). “Rich, no.”

“Shh! I’ll be fine, honey-bun. Listen. After last night, I think I could probably pull a tree out of the ground.” There’s a smug grin on his face as he watches Eddie’s light up red, and he flips his friends his middle finger when he hears them snort. Richie continues, nonplussed, “Come on, what's gonna be down there? A crazy serial killer clown?”

Eddie huffs a defeated laugh and takes one, two, three steps back. He rolls his eyes at the way that he puts on a show, rolling up his sleeves like some wrestler. But he’s still a little anxious. His palms are still semi-sweaty. 

Richie jumps down into the clubhouse in one fell swoop, and the following scream does _not_ come from Eddie’s boyfriend. It’s impossibly loud, shocking all four of them still on the surface, and sounds nothing like anything Eddie has _ever_ heard before. _Ever._

“Holy _shit!”_ Richie shouts, a burst of stunned laughter sinking into his words, and he’s gasping himself, Eddie can hear. “Guys!” he calls. “It’s not a fucking killer clown, that’s for sure!”

The four of them hesitate for one singular second before all scrambling to drop their heads in the gap that’s supposed to be closed, looking down upside down, but it’s easy enough to make it out. It should be difficult. It should be impossible. Because what’s before them makes all the rest of them exclaim, “Holy _shit!”_ in the same way that Richie had done.

Stan. And Mike. _Sitting_ on the hammock together. Pale as sheets. And wow, at least none of them can say now that Richie’s is the only dick that they’ve seen in the group. 

“On my hammock?” Eddie says. “It had to be on my fucking hammock, Stan?”

Stan just about faints. Mike just about follows. 

"Well, Scooby-Gang," Richie concludes. "Looks like we solved the mystery!"

**Author's Note:**

> there it is! thank you so so so so much for reading this. im terribly sorry that it is so long in comparison to the others in this series. i wanted to finish with a bang (lol) and not leave anything out.  
> as always, kudos, bookmarks and comments are SO GREATLY appreciated. the wonderful comments that i received on the last parts of these fics are what inspired me to write (and keep writing) this one. im forever grateful! and i try to reply to every comment that i receive!
> 
> thank you guys so much again :)))))))))
> 
> come talk to me on twitter @greyclouding !


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